So, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are engaged!
Abortion
What the heck? Is your head spinning like mine?
Okay, let me stop chuckling for a moment and compose myself. There now. So, I guess the first thing I want to do is take a moment to wish the lovely young couple well. I am sure they are looking forward to years and years of marital bliss, lots of kids, Mommy running for President, etc. Still, there is something sticking in my craw (wherever my craw is).
According to newspaper reports, the kids made the announcement in the latest edition of “Us Weekly” Magazine. In other words, they didn’t tell Mommy Palin. Yes, Sarah Palin learned that her daughter was engaged when she picked up “Us Weekly,” one of the few magazines that she probably reads. And get this – young Bristol said that she didn’t tell her mom in person because “it is intimidating and scary just to think about what her reaction is going to be.” So, instead, she just went straight to the magazines.
Bristol Palin, the daughter of a Presidential candidate who criss-crossed the country touting the importance of “upholding family values,” was afraid to tell her mother that she was going to get married! Oh, sweet irony!
But let’s take this a step further, shall we?
A few years ago, then Governor Palin came out publicly in favor of a ballot initiative in Alaska that would have required a minor to notify her parents that she was going to have an abortion. Indicating her support for the measure, the Governor said that “the young girl should have the counsel of her parents in such a major decision.” See where I’m going with this one?
So, Governor Palin thinks that when a young girl is contemplating abortion she should feel comfortable enough to run to her parents with the news. And, even if she is not comfortable, then too bad, you gotta tell your parents anyway and they will surely understand and be sympathetic.
But, wait a second, what about Bristol? Why didn’t she feel comfortable going to her mom to tell her about this important decision? Well, as Bristol said herself, she was intimidated. She was scared. She just could not face her mother. And now, her mom is saying that that is Bristol’s decision and she will honor it.
The point I’m trying to make is that folks like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, et al love going out and talking about how their party is the party of “family values.” They stand in front of large crowds in a supermarket parking lot and talk about restoring traditions, reminiscing wistfully about the good old days. Of course, we know about Rush’s drug addiction and Newt’s marriages, but that’s beside the point. They don’t have to practice family values, they can just go out and say they believe in them.
And Sarah Palin says that every young woman out there who is contemplating an abortion should talk to their parents because, gosh darn it, good families would welcome that kind of discussion and would be oh-so-understanding. Too bad her daughter didn’t see things that way.
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 
July 15, 2010 at 3:09 pm
The difference between killing someone and marrying someone is night and day. Sarah’s right.
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July 17, 2010 at 9:50 am
The point, John, is that she and other right wingers love to tout family values but it is clear that their families are not perfect as well.
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July 19, 2010 at 5:28 am
Pat
This guy is o bonehead, completely missed the point.
Maybe he should stalk Palin, she does not foster family values which disenfranchises a young person from wanting to be with their parent to help them make the hard desicions like abortion.
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July 15, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Decades ago the Republicans framed “family values” as being positive. they quite successfully co-opted a full discussion which would have revealed that family values also come in very negative sets as well. Abused women learn in childhood that abuse is normal; impoverished adults learn in childhood the impulsivity and habit of immediate gratification that keep them in poverty for life, and boys learn the self-imposed isolation, competitiveness and emotional sequestration that prevents them from being the father their children need.
As for Levi and Bristol, Jon Swift (the late Alan Weisel, whom I sorely miss) said conservatives will have no problem as those kids contravene Sarah’s ideological principles: Bristol can do whatever she wants, because she’s a conservative… and conservatives are not bound by rules of consistency, because conservatives are different. Coming up in four years: infidelities by both of theml; in six: divorce…..
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July 17, 2010 at 9:51 am
totally agree with your prediction, CG.
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July 19, 2010 at 5:34 am
The irony, is people that don’t even have the fancily values schtick in their lexicon, don’t really think about it, talk about it have more family values than I have anecdotally seen.
Look at the Gingritches, Edwards, Swaggerts, Bakers of the world.
These are the last people we need lessons and lectures from?
I bet that fits in your schema somewhere CG?
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July 19, 2010 at 5:41 pm
It would be an epicycle– a sort of sidewheeling to the main topic. Unless those people were studied and found to be psychologically deficient, they would more properly be considered hypocrites, Agbess.
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July 15, 2010 at 7:27 pm
So CG, how exactly do abuse, impulsivity and isolation qualify as “values”?
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July 19, 2010 at 5:36 am
The young Padua asking for their Master Jedi to opine, reminds of the first appearance of Yoda.
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July 15, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Ah, welcome back, young Skywalker!! (wrestles with compulsion to do the Yoda shtick, successfully resists.)
They are negative values.
We like to think of values as good, wholesome and desirable, but they are nothing more than the behaviors we have learned will help us to get what we want.
Our earliest values have nothing to do with truth, goodness, justice or the American way– if you read Gerald Edelman’s “Bright Air, Brilliant Fire,” about the way biology constructs the mind (by use of the potential of the brain), you learn that the limbic system (as Edelman puts it, “that part which tells us to eat it as it goes by,” which is the highest evolution of the reptilian brain) is the repository of our most basic value– what is “normal.”
Not normal in the sense of rational, polite, orderly and so forth, but neurologically comfortable. Edelman says that neutrophils acting on the developing cells and synapses of the limbic system produce a network which in effect tells the rest of the brain, “This state of feeling is ‘normal.’ ”
Now, that state of feeling doesn’t have to be equanimable at all– the limbic system may well wire up a message that being tense, grouchy, paranoid or even latently psychotic is “normal.” It’s just the way it happens. Edelman (who has won two Nobels in neuroscience, by the way) doesn’t explore whether the pregnant woman’s actions, environment, etc., affect what gets laid down in the limbic system; he just points out it’s the role the neutrophils play in the development of the mind.
What this means in human life is that babies can be considerably different from what their parents hoped or feared (usually hoped, I would say). And that they can also be quite different temperamentally from their older siblings. In any event, at a pre-cognitive stage, the baby will act to get back to what its limbic system regards as “stasis”– the even keel, so to speak. For some it’s fidgeting, for others it’s fussing, and so on.
So, the limbic system is the home of your very first values. As you senesce (I hope not for the next sixty years), your brain’s higher functions will shut down, and your limbic system will again assume dominance by default. You will have returned to your infantile value system.
The next values are learned by the higher brain functions– E.B. Skinner, the grandfather of the behavioral school of pedagogy, did stunning (if perhaps excessive) work in the field of stimulus and response. He illustrated that much of our higher function of behavior is simply learned responses to repeated stimuli. If somebody hits you often enough, you will wince every time anybody raises their hand to you, that sort of thing. Also, that you can deliberately perform actions that will get from others the result that you want– such as a baby using one cry to get fed and another to get rocked to sleep. In fact, it is consistent parental responses to those haphazard stimuli that train the baby to use different cries to achieve different ends.
These pre-cognitive lessons are remembered by the brain, and as the child moves into the world of cognition, he/she fine-tunes the stimulus/response interplay as he/she starts to make more sense of the world around him (or her). And they do it at a very young age. By 12 months, they understand some words are not polite, even though they cannot yet speak. But even more surprisingly, by four months old, they are able to get a sense of the emotional atmosphere about them! Whether Mom and Dad love or hate one another, whether there’s an uncomfortable ambience in the room, whether things are “normal.” And their limbic system is always in the background, ready to tell them what is normal.
The cerebral cortex, however, gains more and more control over the limbic system, and eventually gets most of the poker chips in the game. The problem is that it is possible for the cerebral cortex to overrule the limbic system EVEN WHEN THE FORMER IS “RIGHT.” This is where “family values” come into play.
Here’s an example: the limbic system says “being surrounded by a family is ‘normal.’ ” So the child who fears for his life when he witnesses Mom and Dad fighting, recognizes rationally that this is a threatening situation. But that’s in opposition to the primal value of family. And he has to resolve the conflict in order to satisfy his limbic urge to return to “normal.” So he adopts a strategy that satisfies his rational mind and his limbic system at the same time. If the strategy works consistently enough, he adopts it as a “value.” Ta-dahh!
Now, young Skywalker, as an orphan you have not been exposed to many family values, but I assure you they come in all flavors. We’ve seen the “good ones” in the Brady Bunch, the Andy Griffith Show, or MTV for you young sprats. But there are more families than just good ones– and it is in those other families that negative values are pre-eminent because they ensure survival in a way the child (and all the other family members) consider “normal.”
For example, if a child learns that telling an alcoholic father what he wants to hear will save her from a beating, she learns to lie without a bit of shame or guilt. And if a father learns that to hold onto his pay means life is more complicated than if he spends it on a third color TV, he will value simplicity by being spendthrift. And if Mom realizes that keeping a budget brings nothing but continual financial disappointment as Dad breaks it, she will value spending today what could have bought food next week.
The capstone perhaps of the negative family values scene was 300 years of “poisonous pedagogy” in Germany, where the whole culture was encouraged to manipulate, punish and deceive children into extremely repressed, angry, self-loathing and vindictive beings, who could only escape the horrors of such a childhood by becoming parents in their own turn and dumping all the accumulated poisons onto their own offspring. The result was nothing less than the demolition of the notion that the Devil roams about the world, seeking souls. Parents do his work all by themselves, thank you.
I cannot recommend highly enough the late Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelties of Child-Rearing.” My own parents used that phrase to administer many a spanking.
So, young Skywalker, when you become a parent, join a parenting group– and for God’s sake, don’t let it be a church-based one (unless you consider Unitarianism a religion). Understand why there are ways in which you want to be a better parent than your own, and be aware that your baby will, if necessary to survive, adopt and treasure negative values…
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July 16, 2010 at 6:04 am
I’ll wait until I get home in the afternoon to respond fully to this. But one point before I do: you refer to individual’s perception of values, as relates to development from infant to adult to elder. What I’m more or less referring to is what we value collectively as a society (which is more and more becoming a divided schizophrenic society, but nonetheless…). I don’t see the Palin/Johnson situation as representing our “values”; we put (or should put) emphasis on a loving family where you should be able to tell without fear. “Tolerance” is the buzzword.
Also, explain “negative values” further; if by that you mean “what not to do”, I’ve already had a crash course, thank you.
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July 18, 2010 at 7:09 pm
What do you mean as a Schizophrenic society, that is quite a bizarre statement.
Please advise.
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July 18, 2010 at 7:10 pm
CMDR what is Schizophrenia since you are using the term by the DSM 4R soon to be the the4 DSM 5.
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July 18, 2010 at 7:11 pm
You seem smart enough to support your position, please advise.
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July 16, 2010 at 10:16 am
Commander, a “negative value” is one that serves the person in the short term, but is harmful in the long term. The example I used, where a girl lies to keep the alcoholic mollified, is an example. She learns that it is good to hold the family together by telling her father what he wants to hear, rather than the truth. And it works– the family stays together, she doesn’t get beaten, and so on.
In the long run of course, as she becomes habituated to telling people what they want to hear, they wind up acting on false information, and she winds up losing credibility.
Anybody who’s lucky enough to tell himself, “I’ll never do THAT again!” is displaying the intellectual process whereby values are adopted.
You can’t impose values on others; you can only communicate what you expect from them and do what you can to get them to live up to your standards. Neither can you expect that your values are or should be normative. You can set them out for society to consider, but be prepared for society to tell you to take a flying leap. By the way, those lovebirds are not setting a standard for society; they are merely acting out according to their value system
You’ll find my original essay gets a little mushy in the middle, but it was a first draft, and by the time I was done, I was too tired to revise.
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July 16, 2010 at 5:47 am
O my gosh, Commander, better you than I! Noble Prize Winner (like Al Gore) Gerald Edelman, E.B. Skinner (the gall even to mention him after what we know — “excessive”? ha), Alice Miller, for God’s sake, Alice Miller? No wonder Charles is the way he is! He could have saved himself a lifetime of reading if he’d only happened on Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” early.
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July 16, 2010 at 9:56 am
Wow, who knew that was this kind of tension over the Palin household. The woman is nuts and to think that she could have been our vice president is scary.
This story actually shows what happens day to day in the world, kids too afraid to come to their parents with certain issues.
Open conversations can even prevent unwanted pregnancies, because kids that talk to their parents about their sexual lives are more likely to be more educated on the subject and protect themselves.
It is much better to face an issue like your kid’s sexual life then to deal with the consequences of careless actions.
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July 17, 2010 at 9:52 am
Well said, Kathy.
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July 16, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I was not going to comment on this subject because i just think that SARAH PALIN is completely crazy… but i just want to say something, can anyone imagine what goes on inside her house!!! If her own daughter, mother, young adult is afraid to tell her mommy that she is going to get engaged with her babies father, what happen when she announced she was pregnant??
OMG.
Is Sarah really against abortion?
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July 17, 2010 at 9:53 am
yes, Sarah Palin has said that she is personally agaisnt abortion and would leave it up to the states to decide it’s legality. She is pro-life through and through.
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July 18, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Palins an idiot, she lost the presidency for us conservatives,
she should be crucified.
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July 19, 2010 at 8:00 am
And I will add that I hope the Republican Party nominates her for President. That would guarantee Obama’s re-election
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July 22, 2010 at 10:02 am
GOOD, no GREAT POINT PAT!!!!!!!!!!
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July 16, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Well, yes, she is against abortion, but I suspect she’d make an exception in Levi’s case….
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July 19, 2010 at 8:01 am
Of course she would. If Bristol told her mom she was pregnant and didn’t want the baby, Sarah would support her “choice.” but not others, I guess!
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July 16, 2010 at 1:57 pm
CG: Individual values (negative and otherwise) are one thing; for instance, from watching my parents separate, I learned that one, no hidden agendas or behind-the-back nonsense allowed, nad two, there’s no room for incorrigibility (among other things). Thus, openness (and the occasional correction to keep me in line 😉 will be what I value, in terms of communicating with a wife. That’s individual level, I get that.
But when we get into society as a whole, it gets more difficult. Here’s how I see it: values are 9or should be) based on morals. Morals, in turn, are the logical follow-up of truth (if it’s true that private property is sacred, thou shalt not steal is the logical follow-up to that truth, etc). That can be considered “normative”.
Admittedly(again), Palin’s situation doesn’t represent the ideal, or the “value” of a good relationship within the family. but does that diminish the standard? I don’t think so. No human escapes hypocrisy, myself included. just my thoughts…
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July 16, 2010 at 9:38 pm
The problem with setting standards in morality, Commander, is that it takes way too much thought for the average citizen– and certainly our post-literate culture does not encourage thought.
Historically, morality has been on a par with religion in terms of its role in society. And Gibbon said of the religions of ancient Rome, “To the believer, they were equally true; to the philosopher, equally false; and to the magistrate, equally useful.”
You can see how morality was eminently useful to the Republican Congress of 2000, impeaching the President on a morality charge. Few realize that the architect and navigator of the effort, Newt Gingrich, was engaged in a second adulterous liaison (a repeat of the behavior that broke his first marriage)– and the Republicans quite generously hid their knowledge of it at the same time they whipped up the media into a frenzy. So, encouraging adherence to morality at the public level is usually just a political ploy for an end which of itself could be good or bad.
Besides being a tool, the notion of setting public standards of morality lead quickly into debates which would, if rationally and logically pursued, never end. One example is on this site.
John Dunkle believes that abortion is evil; I believe that children need to be nurtured and that those who want them born are morally obligated to care for them through childhood. He calls me a murderer; I call him an emotionally troubled individual. How does one go about establishing a moral standard which somehow accommodates or refutes one or both of those positions?
When you tie that discussion into the personal values held by each individual involved, you can see how intractable the problem can be.
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July 17, 2010 at 4:50 am
I don’t call Charles Gregory a murderer. Legally he’s not a murderer. Morally? Well the babies are murdered, sure. But who’s responsible? That’s for God to decide. I hate to ask myself this question, but here goes anyway: is the more responsible person he who, like Charles thinks that before birth he was a humanoid rather than a human, or is he a person like me who thinks he was a human being even then?
So I don’t call Charles a murderer, I call him a killers’ helper.
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July 17, 2010 at 5:29 am
And so it starts, Commander… Meanings are parsed to the nth degree.
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July 18, 2010 at 4:52 am
Charles means one should not make distinctions.
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July 18, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Hey, folks, what do you think about my blog being “pushed down” on the home page??? Let’s start a movement to have my stuff posted first, right?
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July 18, 2010 at 1:03 pm
YESSSSSSSSS
I didn’t like that either, it doesn’t look good at all!!!
Whoever did that have to remove that from there!
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July 18, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Thanks, Sonia! Maybe I should go on strike until I’m put back in the first position! STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!
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July 18, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Very confusing — they put ads there, and does Elena write them? PUT PAT BACK ON TOP!
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July 19, 2010 at 5:52 am
My guess is that movie will be out in a few days and then it will be gone, why leave it up?
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July 19, 2010 at 8:03 am
I’m back on top! The people have spoken and we have won! See, we can find some common ground!!!
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July 18, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Obviously Pat is not an artist! An artist would be surprised and amazed that anyone would show her work, even below the fold. Elena, being the businessman of the team, cold-bloodedly calculates what it will take to pay for the server… Pat is more like a Picasso or Dylan, keeping an eye on the main chance.
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July 18, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Pardon me?
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July 19, 2010 at 8:05 am
True, CG, I am not an artist in the “I dont give a crap about my work” vein. Still, I am a proud “author” who really was taken aback when I was pushed down. Silly me…
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July 19, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Ah, an author of the Norman Mailer school . . .!
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July 18, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I can’t pardon you, John.
When it comes to art, Pablo Picasso and Bob Dylan are at the summit of artist as businessman. They both had a keen sense for where the market was heading, they both adjusted their styles to maximize their marketability, both in the art they produced and their relations with the movers and shakers in their field.
Poor Pat, on the other hand, writes in hopes that someone will find value in it. She’ll never replace Danielle Steele, Dean Koontz or Steven King…
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July 19, 2010 at 8:06 am
I’m fine with not replacing Steele, King and Koontz.
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July 18, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Oh, nonsense.
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July 18, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Palins an idiot how she became more than a janitor is astonishing, she destroyed conservatism, and screwed it up for McCain, damn her.
Now that si a rela hero with real heart!!
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July 19, 2010 at 8:07 am
John McCain screwed himeself when he selected her, hardly even knowing her. I think he saw her in person, got a hard on and said “This is great. Sex sells!”
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