Last week the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the decision made in Roe v. Wade in 1973 was incorrect, and there is no constitutional right to abortion. While we rightly rejoice in what appears to be a landmark decision that we hope will result in many lives saved, we must admit that in many ways, the revolution of thought that began at least as far back as Rousseau has largely won the day in Western society. Let’s consider the final chapters of Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self in Part 4: The Triumph of the Revolution.
As we have already noted in Part 3, it has become commonplace in the West to see sex and one’s sexuality as equivalent to his identity. “This means,” says Truman, “that all matters pertaining to sex are therefore matters that concern who we are at the deepest level. Sex is identity, sex is politics, sex is culture.” No one can be an authentic person if restricted by traditional sexual codes, so all taboos must be demolished, and the idea that anyone would choose celibacy or chastity is laughable – indeed, it is a regular comedic subject on television and in movies, exemplified in titles such as the comedy, The 40 Year Old Virgin.
This is what Trueman calls “The Triumph of the Erotic,” and it is most clearly seen in the normalization of pornography across all sectors of modern society. During the last half of the 20th century, pornography has become mainstream; it no longer carries the social stigma that once limited its reach. Even feminists, who for years had opposed pornography as degrading to women and a sign of male dominance, have now begun to show approval for what has been dubbed “ethically sourced” porn.
But the social significance of pornography goes far beyond where it comes from and whether it involves trafficking or prostitution or other unethical practices. Pornography effectively separates sex from the human encounter, so that “the other person becomes not an end but rather a means to an end, that of personal pleasure and sexual satisfaction of the individual consumer.” Porn affects one’s sexual expectations, detaches sex both from personal history and from future consequences, and strips it of any ethical context. In other words, sex has become a kind of commodity that is packaged and sold to be consumed at will.
The Biblical view is that sex is fundamentally relational, and its legitimate place is an ongoing social relationship called marriage.
This is precisely the end we would expect in a society which has embraced the ideals of personal authenticity and happiness as the chief end of man. On the other hand, the Biblical view is that sex is fundamentally relational, and its legitimate place is an ongoing social relationship called marriage. When we try to remove it from this context, we debase ourselves as human beings. And this is true of both those who create and those who consume porn.
In addition to the widespread acceptance of pornography, Trueman discusses the success of the homosexual movement in America in a chapter he entitles, “The Triumph of the Therapeutic.” The 2015 Supreme Court decision which found a right to gay marriage in the Constitution is part of a larger story of legal development in our society. The very idea of gay marriage only makes sense because of the change in the social imaginary that we discussed previously. Trueman cites another court decision, 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, as significant for reading the concept of personal autonomy into the law. It reads: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” This is basically enshrining Rousseau’s ideals of personal autonomy and authenticity in American law.1
The 2015 Obergfell v. Hodges decision, finding a constitutional right to gay marriage, was decided in part on the reasoning about the right of self-definition found in Casey. The therapeutic need of the individual – his psychological health and well-being – have become most important, and all of society, even the law, must give way to it. This means that the same logic used to discover a constitutional right to gay marriage could be used to argue for polygamy or bestiality or even pedophilic marriages. After all, if one’s sexuality is a fundamental attribute of his personhood, the State cannot compel him to adopt a particular belief about what constitutes acceptable sexual expression.
In the final chapter, Trueman discusses what he calls “The Triumph of the T,” referring to transgenderism, which has overtaken homosexuality as the flagship of the anticulture in the West. He argues that lesbians and gays are not simply male and female versions of the same phenomena but rather distinct reactions to heterosexuality. For both gays and lesbians, bodily distinctions between men and women are of utmost importance.
Transgenderism operates on a free-floating concept of gender, where categories are not fixed or even necessarily related to biological sex. This compels us to ask, “How does the T stand in positive relation to the L, the G, and the B in LGBT?” If the transgender community denies that our biology shapes our self, how can it coexist with gays and lesbians who hold that sexual identity must be understood within the framework of two clearly defined genders? The answer, according to Trueman, is that these groups share a common enemy. For the sake of the political effort, they put aside their differences, at least in public. This means that the LGBTQIA+ movement, as such, is inherently unstable, and will ultimately lead to the end of all stable categories of identity. Sexual orientation, gender identity, legal recognition of a person’s self-identification, and even the definition of family are all subject to constant revision and change.
“Transgenderism,” Trueman concludes, “is a symptom, not a cause. It is not the reason why gender categories are now so confused; it is rather a function of a world in which the collapse of metaphysics and of stable discourse has created such chaos that not even the most basic of binaries, that between male and female, can any longer lay claim to meaningful objective status. And the roots of this pathology lie deep within the intellectual traditions of the West.” What’s left? Is there hope for a society that is determined to justify itself by itself? What is the long-term prognosis? We will consider his conclusion and some responses next.
1 The Casey decision was also overturned along with Roe, so we will see if this has any impact on future potential challenges to other legal decisions.