New at Reason
Jesse Walker explains how Disney's recognition of same-sex marriages is merely Hayekian social change in action.
Comments to "New at Reason":
ed | April 9, 2007, 12:14pm | #
"a ceremony setting befitting the dreams of a princess."I'm just happy I had nothing in my mouth when I read that line.
highnumber | April 9, 2007, 12:21pm | #
Oh, ed!Is it any coincidence that I am glad that I had nothing in my mouth when I read your comment?
VM | April 9, 2007, 12:22pm | #
*looks up, quickly*um. what Highnumber said.
*ambles back to his bunk*
R C Dean | April 9, 2007, 12:28pm | #
The phrases "gay marriage" and "I'm glad I had nothing in my mouth when . . ." really shouldn't be used together.Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Bhh | April 9, 2007, 12:33pm | #
Gay guys are the only guys who could possibly enjoy the whole wedding thing so go nuts guys.Anywho my sister is having a girl in a few months. She's getting carpetbombed by Disney pink princess pony crap.
LarryA | April 9, 2007, 12:42pm | #
For an extra fee, couples buying the Fairy Tale Wedding can hire Mickey and Minnie Mouse to attend as guests, sitting in the audience in formal wear.But can you get Mickey and Joe? Or Minnie and Susan? Haven't seen any gay Disney characters yet.
Bee | April 9, 2007, 12:50pm | #
Anybody else here been to Gay Days at either Disneyland or Disney World? Fun fun fun. We look forward to that all year. And we're straight!Disney's acceptance of the real world (as lived here in SoCal, anyway) goes down well here with both straights and gays. They're a pretty big employer hereabouts.
I understand that people do boycott their products for exactly this reason, however. Which they are perfectly free to do.
Jesse is right, but don't worry in 5-10 or more years the government will sanction gay marriage and then claim full responsibility for it being accepted into mainstream society.
Mark Borok | April 9, 2007, 1:05pm | #
"But can you get Mickey and Joe? Or Minnie and Susan?"How about Walt Disney in a dress?
highnumber | April 9, 2007, 1:09pm | #
Haven't seen any gay Disney characters yet.Then you haven't been paying attention.
Stevo Darkly | April 9, 2007, 1:20pm | #
But can you get Mickey and Joe? Or Minnie and Susan? Haven't seen any gay Disney characters yet.It could be pointed out that both Goofy and Pluto are male dogs, and I think I've seen a picture of Goofy leading a naked Pluto on a leash, indicating a homosexual relationship there, albeit of the out-there San Franscisco S&M type.
I guess since Mickey is actually gimpy Pluto's "owner" he has the same kind of relationship, so all three of them must be in some kind of gay polyamorous arrangement. Disney has long ago broken ground way beyond "two gay people quietly living together as a couple."
brotherben | April 9, 2007, 1:24pm | #
The judge says to minnie, "you want a divorce because mickey is not right in the head?"Minnie says "Your honor, I didn't say he was crazy,
I said he was fuckin goofy."
hrumphing Moose | April 9, 2007, 1:27pm | #
Highnumber:look up! Look down! Look out! Look around! There's a crazy world out there... It could happen to you. It could happen to me. It could happen to everyone eventually. As you happen to say, it could happen today...
highnumber | April 9, 2007, 1:45pm | #
Moose,Tu link en tu primero comment está quebrado.
Que lastima.
VM | April 9, 2007, 1:52pm | #
http://members.fortunecity.com/colorbook/colouring4/alvin3.gif(I sorry)
Deny | April 9, 2007, 2:19pm | #
Some will argue this is next at Disney.http://www.pacificsites.com/~drhoades/graphics/gallery/maddog.jpg
Warren | April 9, 2007, 2:25pm | #
Yeah well Mickey is just a corporate bitch anyhow.http://www.reason.com/news/show/33357.html
Ben Webster | April 9, 2007, 8:47pm | #
Just an observation: "If anything, the government has been increasingly unfriendly to gay unions, with multiple states passing laws refusing to recognize same-sex marriages."Many states have amended their constitutions to ban both same same-sex marriage and civil unions," but it's not a majority of states. States like New Hampshire, Oregon, Illinois and some others look set to approve civil unions.
It's ultimately a federal issue. The Illinois law, for example, which may or may not pass, will recognize both same-sex and opposite-civil unions. It also recognizes civil unions from other states.
Anyone who pretends this won't be a federal issue is, in my opinion, wrong.
My guess is that same-sex marriage will be legalized at the national within the next eight to ten years.
In the meantime, the states will decide.
Ben
Realist | April 9, 2007, 9:17pm | #
"F.A. Hayek...celebrated social orders that emerge from below rather than being imposed from above."Nazism was a social order that emerged from below. No matter where they emerge from, social orders are MAINTANED from above. That's the crucial fact that stary-eyed libertarians choose to ignore.
highnumber | April 9, 2007, 10:19pm | #
Realist, you're wrong. The Nazi party emerged from below. Their social order was imposed from above.That's not a nitpick, it's an important distinction that you have missed.
leon | April 10, 2007, 12:47am | #
highnumberMiddle-class German enthusiasm for the Nazi program is well documented. Hitler was elected, and he wasn't hiding his program.
highnumber | April 10, 2007, 8:58am | #
leon,You're missing the point.
Popular support for top-down controls does not mean that the control is coming from below.
Hitler was first appointed (when his popularity was on the wane) and then was able (with the help of other parties) to gain a majority of seats in government. The Nazi party never achieved in an election the 50% plus one seats it would have to have had to claim solo majority rule via the vote.
Grotius | April 10, 2007, 9:46am | #
leon,As for enthusiasm for the Nazi program, well, the Nazis were big pollers, observers of public opinion, etc. They tried to craft such of course but they also tried to bend to it. Indeed, one of the reasons that they did so was due to fear of a coup; they didn't want to be overthrown as Kaiser had been at the close of WWI.
Thomas Korn | April 10, 2007, 12:18pm | #
Gay Marriage slipping in the mainstream consciousness through the back door you say?I love it when people "boycott" In todays world, this just turns into free publicity. Besides, most the people who claim they do not want to economically support Disney, can't anyway. Its just a cheap way to make themselves feel important to not spend the money they don't have in the first place. Whereas most gays are college educated and have the money to waste.
Fitz | April 10, 2007, 5:48pm | #
Companies like Disney (Ford, Wall-Mart Ect) don’t fear Boycotts.. What they fear is the press and elite opinion. Focus on the Family can boycott anything they want and no one will really notice. But GLAAD or some other interest group on the left launches a charge that X or Y company is “discriminatory” and the whole media lights up.These companies aren’t exactly eager to give away prohibitively expensive “partner benefits” even to legitimately married men & woman. Yet years back most of them bent over backwards to offer them to homosexual couples. The “why exactly” of that story is one you wont be seeing on 60 minutes.
As far as Walkers “impeccably Hayekian fashion, as folkways appear on the ground and are gradually ratified by imitation”– well, if Yale University and the NYT are "ground up folkways"…then what is this….
57-43 = Oregon, 59-41 = Michigan, 62-38 = California, 62-38 = Ohio, 66-34 = Utah, 67-33 = Montana, 71-29 = Kansas, 71-29 = Missouri, 73-27 = North Dakota, 75-25 = Arkansas, 75-25 = Kentucky, 76-24 = Georgia, 76-24 = Oklahoma, 78-22 = Louisiana, 86-14 = Mississippi, 56-44 = Colorado, 63–37 = Idaho, 74-26 = South Carolina, 52-49 = South Dakota, 82-19 = Tennessee, 57-43 = Virginia, 60-40 = Wisconsin..
How does that fit in???
Jesse Walker | April 11, 2007, 8:56am | #
How does that fit in???It doesn't, since evolution doesn't work by majority vote. Same applies to the silly Nazi comparison someone made upthread.
evolution?? huh, some sort of neo-Darwinian thesis for social change. Why would not democratic action be a legitimate part of that? What about states that legislatively enact civil unions and the like? Is that "evolution"
Fitz | April 11, 2007, 1:02pm | #
“If Mickey is cool with gay marriage, the rest of the country can't be that far behind.”They say: “It’s not whether elites rule, but which elites.”
I’m not talking about a conspiracy; I’m talking about a consensus.
The weight of that consensus driving a social “evolution” says nothing about the moral veracity of what is “evolving”.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63
There are any numbers of advocacy groups that want fortune 500 companies to meet this or that demand. (The list is endless)
The idea however that fortune 500 companies are legitimate evolutionary forces, yet democratic rule is somehow an illegitimate force (or no force at all) is simply not “impeccably Hayekian” idea.
Jesse Walker | April 11, 2007, 1:24pm | #
If you've read the phrase "impeccably Hayekian," then you have found the first of two paragraphs explaining what I mean by Hayekian evolution. Hopefully they will clear up any confusion about the role democracy, social elites, and the Fortune 500 may or may not play in the transformation.Fitz | April 11, 2007, 2:02pm | #
Mr. WalkerI cant seem to square your statement:
"as folkways appear on the ground and are gradually ratified by imitation, then market acknowledgement, and then, only lastly, by the law."
With your answer to my question?
"As far as Walkers “impeccably Hayekian fashion, as folkways appear on the ground and are gradually ratified by imitation”– well, if Yale University and the NYT are "ground up folkways"…then what is this….How does that fit in???
57-43 = Oregon, 59-41 = Michigan, 62-38 = California, 62-38 = Ohio, 66-34 = Utah, 67-33 = Montana, 71-29 = Kansas, 71-29 = Missouri, 73-27 = North Dakota, 75-25 = Arkansas, 75-25 = Kentucky, 76-24 = Georgia, 76-24 = Oklahoma, 78-22 = Louisiana, 86-14 = Mississippi, 56-44 = Colorado, 63–37 = Idaho, 74-26 = South Carolina, 52-49 = South Dakota, 82-19 = Tennessee, 57-43 = Virginia, 60-40 = Wisconsin.."
"It doesn't, since evolution doesn't work by majority vote."
Certainly this would be a legitimate manifestation of evolution working within society. In this instance it seems to be the majority declaring the folkway undesirable through democratic action. Is there no room in your understanding of "Hayekian evolution" for anything less then your desired outcome?
Jesse Walker | April 11, 2007, 11:35pm | #
Certainly this would be a legitimate manifestation of evolution working within society. In this instance it seems to be the majority declaring the folkway undesirable through democratic action.That may be part of a society's evolution in the broader sense of the term, but it is no more a part of the Hayekian process I described than a minority declaring a folkway unacceptable through the orders of a military junta.
Is there no room in your understanding of "Hayekian evolution" for anything less then your desired outcome?
Where did that strawman come from? Hayekian evolution has produced plenty of things I don't personally care for, though I wouldn't outlaw them.