While I still have my soapbox...

The other day Grace was trying to explain the concept of "wife" to Miles. Miles said "I want a wife!" Grace said that maybe he would have a wife when he was older. Miles announced "The robot is my wife!" (The robot is one of his toy figures.)

If I had not gotten sick, I would have liked to marry Grace (assuming she was willing to marry me!). We consider ourselves to be in a marriage-like relationship, and even refer to each other as "husband" and "wife" sometimes, but it would be nice to do so without any hesitation or qualification (e.g., "well, not legally..."). I love calling Grace my wife or hearing her call me her husband - it makes me feel proud to be with her. We often say "partner," but that just doesn't have the same ring (pun intended).

I hate to agree with social conservatives on anything, but I think the institution of marriage is in decline in our culture, and that something of value is being lost as a result. Unlike many social conservatives, however, I don't think that gays and lesbians blurring the definition of marriage is the cause of the decline. I fail to see how a group of people fighting for the right to legally marry devalues the institution - on the contrary, it suggests that marriage is valuable enough to fight for. I think the cause of the decline is the fact that younger generations increasingly view marriage as optional. Marriage is viewed as a personal choice, but not necessary for cohabitation or childrearing.

I realize this may seem hypocritical since Grace and I have contributed to this trend. I don't think there is anything inherently immoral about unmarried cohabitation or childrearing. In fact, I'm not sure whether this trend is a bad thing overall. But I think it is symptomatic of the general loosening of the social ties that bind us together (the "Bowling Alone" idea, although I didn't actually read that book). In our culture, I think people increasingly view themselves as independent autonomous individuals (my friend Lauren, a cultural psychologist, could speak to this more cogently). Although, like I said, I'm not sure whether this is a bad thing overall, I think something of value is lost when we do not feel embedded in social networks (and, no, Facebook does not count).

On a different but related note, I recently read about Jonathan Haidt's research on the preponderance of liberals in academia. Haidt apparently suggests that conservatives are made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in academia and thus they leave. That may be part of it, but I think another part is that conservatives tend to value making money more than liberals, and academia doesn't pay well (especially for the amount of educational investment required), so conservatives are more likely to pursue other fields such as business. Apropos, I read someone describe the political policy battle between liberals and conservatives as a fight between PhDs and MBAs.

So who should play me in a movie? How about Ed Norton (Yale '91 like me, although I didn't know him). Trivia note: according to IMDB, Norton was friends at Yale with Paul Giamatti and Ron Livingstone, the stars of two of my favorite movies: "Sideways" and "Office Space," respectively.

Ethan