Extended Phenotype

The culture war continues this week, with conservative groups urging a boycott of Proctor & Gamble products because they allegedly “support gay marriage.” The facts of the case are these: the City of Cincinatti has an issue on the ballot this November to repeal a 1993 city charter amendment which forbids the city to enact or enforce laws based on sexual orientation. The 1993 charter amendment (Article XII) forbids the city from taking into account sexual orientation in any claim of “minority or protected status, quota preference or other preferential treatment.”

In other words, Article XII prevents gays and lesbians from petitioning city government for protection against discrimination — in housing, hiring and firing decisions, and so on. Cincinnati is the only city in the U.S., apparently, with such a ban in their city code. The movement to repeal Article XII is motivated by numerous factors; naturally, the gay and lesbian community itself is irate about their basic civil rights and equality; the business community believes that businesses are losing revenue and encountering difficulty recruiting new employees. In addition to Proctor & Gamble, the Mayor, Vice Mayor, 6 city council members, the Chamber of Commerce, 18 business leaders, several dozen religious leaders, unions, General Electric, and the Union Central Life Insurance Company believe it should be repealed. And despite evidence that this is a broad-based, bi-partisan, business & community supported effort, the religious right “thought police” have become involved.

Two conservative groups (neither based in Cincinnati, by the way), believe that the effort to repeal Article XII “supports gay marriage.” The American Family Association calls for a boycott of P&G products using the following “logic”:

While not explicitly saying so, in their public announcement supporting the repeal P&G clearly showed their support for homosexual marriage. P&G said they “will not tolerate discrimination [against homosexuals] in any form, against anyone, for any reason.” To keep homosexuals from being legally married is discrimination for good reason, which P&G says they will not tolerate. Taking them at their word, P&G supports homosexual marriage.(emphasis in the original)

Wow. The sophistry involved in that argument is breathtaking.

When I read the original AP wire story, I couldn’t help but think that the style of argument now being used by moralizing conservatives runs counter to the thesis of a conservative icon, Allan Bloom. In his Closing of the American Mind, Bloom wrote: “removing the authority of men’s reason is to render ineffective the instrument that can correct their prejudices.” And yet, in the works of Bloom and his successors — both secular and religious — reason appears to be deployed only to justify the status quo, to defend ancient prejudices against contemporary critique, to justify a program of rolling back — rather than extending — the principles upon which this country was founded.

And in doing so, the American mind continues to close, not because of the extension of classical liberal principles beyond political equality and into the social realm, but because we continue to use “reason” as a means of justifying our continued dependence upon comfortable prejudice and time-honored superstition.

Where will the real closing of the American mind lead? Avoiding for the moment the extreme examples of modern totalitarian societies, consider the fortunes of Portugal in the age of exploration. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were pre-eminent navigators and explorers, helping to open trade routes around the Horn of Africa and into the Indies. Portugal was a haven of relative religious tolerance in those days, and was home to wide array of astronomers and foreign scholars. Tolerance directly translated into the encouragement of innovation, which led to the prosperity of the nation. In 1497, however, under pressure from Spain and the Church, the Portuguese crown was forced to abandon policies of tolerance, and begin participating in the program of intolerance and xenophobia which gripped Catholic Europe in the sixteenth century.

As a result, by the early 1500′s few astronomers and mathematicians could be found in residence in Portugal. The crown tried to create to encourage Christian education and specialization in science and math, but there were few takers — being considered a scientist was the fastest way to get yourself noticed by the Inquisition. By 1547, an index of prohibited works was prepared. Commerce declined, as Portuguese citizens stopped learning navigational arts. By 1700, many pilots of Portuguese ships in the India trade were foreigners. The Dutch easily displaced Portugal in the spice trade, with the English providing the only real competition to the Dutch. Diplomats returning from the cities of northern Europe (and in particular, Amsterdam) reported immense progress among the countries of Europe in knowledge and commercial success. Those who delivered this message were greeted with fear and suspicion, and nicknamed “estrangeirados” (“Europeanized” intellectuals).

By 1700, Portugal had become a weak backwater. The Enlightenment reached Portugal relatively late, driven largely by the private networks of the estrangeirados. When King Joao V was persuaded to renew education in mathematics and science in the early 1700′s, much of the knowledge and nearly all of the technology had to be imported. But by then, the seeds of the Industrial Revolution had already been planted in northern Europe, and Portugal was destined to remain a relatively weak economic power compared to its neighbors.

Contrasted with the economic, social, and scientific history of northern Europe, the story of Portugal (and to a lesser extent, Spain) should give us pause. The illiberal impulse to legislate morality, restrain science and free inquiry, and deny equality among social groups can affect more than our private lives. Intolerance can have long-lasting effects on the prospects for national success and ultimately, security. The strongest defense against threat (internal or external) is a strong, active culture of tolerance, inquiry, and openness. True patriots must defend these virtues in addition to the outward forms of constitutional democracy.