Another triumph of the divorce generation

[fpb]

According to a recent piece of research that the BBC is heavily publicizing, one good third of British teen-agers do not consider their parents people they admire or want to imitate. Even disregarding the obvious notion of teen-age rebellion, this is rather a worrying number. However, the BBC does not draw one clear conclusion from it: if teen-agers have learned to despise or disregard their own parents, does that have nothing to do with the prevalence of divorce? Does it have nothing to do with Mother telling them all kinds of awful things about Fathers, and Father teaching them to hate Mother, and both of them instructing them to repeat the same stories in the divorce court? Stories the more damaging because they were often based on some truths - Father and Mother knew each other, after all, they knew how to defame each other in the most hurtful ways possible?

As I said elsewhere, the reasons for the prevalence of divorce are real and serious. But when you consider the damage it does, let alone the cost, is there no ground for a serious policy of reducing it?

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

A very quick comment. I have not had time to read beyond the first line or two of your essay.

Isn't it odd, or at the very least interesting, how two people who both seem to hold C S Lewis in such high esteem hold such different views on so many subjects? I've always regarded Lewis' fiction as one of the prime influences on me and my morality as I was growing up and yet I suspect he would be appalled at some of my views - although perhaps appalled is not the right word. The things I got from Lewis was a sense that it was important to think about moral issues, take responsibility for your actions and finally that some sort of redemption is always possible for those who are true to themselves.

I hope he would have argued with me but understood that there can be deeply held differences between people who are equally thoughtful and moral.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You seem to be somewhat in the position of his student Kenneth Tynan, who revered Lewis all his life (to the puzzlement of his modernist wife) while doing a series of things that would have pained or disgusted the old master. Of course I am not suggesting that you would do anything like staging Oh! Calcutta!.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

If he couldn't, he wouldn't have been friends with Tolkien while still an atheist, would he?

But what exactly do you mean by 'true to themselves'?

Questing for the truth, having the determination to follow the truths you've found? - very much so, Emeth comes to mind.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

True to yourself as in not lying to yourself. Edmund in Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe knows that his actions at the start of the book are wrong, but makes excuses to himself to justify them.

I regard that as one of the greatist 'sins of will' and the reason why honest consideration of moral and other issues is important.

Ironically, this was the very reason I first declared myself as an athiest. Faith, to me, has to be active not passive. So many people I knew at the time believed in a way that I do not regard as belief at all, basically they belived because everyone else did. I realised that I no longer had an active belief in God, but was 'along for the ride'. I had two very good friends at the time (who I will now try to contact again - having thought of them) who later went on to become Ministers in the Prebyterian and Church of Ireland Churches. Talking to them I recognised that referring to myself as a Christian devalued their faith and was hypocritical - although at the time, much easier for a number of reasons. One of them female and particularly attractive.

I'm more positive in my atheism now, but regard myself as a sort of secular christian, if that makes any sense. In that, I regard "Do unto others..." as the single most important statement on morality in history.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

[nods] I hear you.

My immediate thought on reading your post was "so, you're not willing to tell what you believe to be lies, about God - good!"

I'm curious though: you realise the importance of truth, but are taking moral advice from people who you would have to regard as either mistaken or as lying. Doesn't that cause friction?

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

Puzzled about your first comment. I don't think there are necessarly any 'lies' about God. In that to tell a lie, you have to know that what you are saying is untrue. I can think someone is wrong without thinking they are telling lies. And can I ask what you meant by the 'good' comment at the end of the sentence?

As to taking moral advice from people I thought were mistaken, (I certainly did not think they were lying). I'm not sure advice is the right word, although I did ask them about things in my own life more more than once, it was a friend to friend relationship rather than minister/parishioner and we discussed a lot of things. I don't recall any friction at all. And because I thought they were wrong about one thing, the existance of God, did not mean I thought they were wrong about everything else.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I've now reread and, I think, understood your opening sentence. Sorry for the confusion and forget my earlier question