Monday, April 28, 2008

Dungeon Incest Story Shocks

By Rick Pearcey

"Woman Held in Dungeon for Two Decades," screams the headline at Der Spiegel. "Incest case shocks Austria." Lead paragraph:

An Austrian woman was kept in her father's basement for 24 years behind a concrete door locked with an electronic code. She bore seven of his children, but relatives, neighbors and officials all deny any knowledge of the case. Many are wondering how that was possible. . . .

Shocking, yes. But for how long?

Imagine a different scenario. Imagine there were no religion, no heaven above, no oppressive structure below.

Imagine just you and me and “love,” as defined by the latest scientific study, poll, or 60s-style focus group, massaged by San Fran marketers and pushed by big money, big celebrity, big ads, and energetic websites.

What if, in this kind of secularist spirituality, the daughter “loved” the incestuous father, the children were well-cared for, and choice was at the center of the relationship?

Would this be love, tolerance, diversity, strength, progress, liberation, family? “Love without boundaries," as it were?

Or might “love without boundaries” really mean passion, yes, but also an autonomous will-to-power in an ethically indifferent universe? A kind of trendy t-shirt fascism from the ground up, imposed from below -- one person, two partners, and several social groupings (aka “families”) at a time.

So why not two incestuous fathers and two incestuous mommies, and 14 sons and 17 preteen daughters? Not in an ugly, uncool Austrian basement, but openly, honestly, proudly, and with "dignity" in a really rich Hollywood suburb.

Or maybe a ranch in Texas.

Maybe “incest” is just another word for nothing left to lose. Just one more hangover from the Dark Ages when words had meaning, love had content, family had form, and kids had childhoods.

Granted, there may be an evolutionary adjustment period during which young sons and daughters appear to struggle with advanced and advancing understandings of tolerance and progress.

But the schools can fix them. Either that, or Mr. Orwell’s Ministry of Love.

Related
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Court Watch: Does McDonald's Support This Lesbian Attack on Family?, by Rick Pearcey
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"Faggot" Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America, by Rick Pearcey
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O'Reilly, Letterman, and the Culture War, by Rick Pearcey

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).