Like the oyster cracker on the stew,
The honey in the tea
The sugar cubes, one lump or two?
No thank you none for me.
We're the golden crust on an apple pie,
That shines in the sun at noon,
Like the wheel of cheese high in the sky
Well ... we're gonna be sinkin' soon.
The honey in the tea
The sugar cubes, one lump or two?
No thank you none for me.
We're the golden crust on an apple pie,
That shines in the sun at noon,
Like the wheel of cheese high in the sky
Well ... we're gonna be sinkin' soon.
~Norah Jones.
 |
| She looks like someone. |
As a preface, please do not think I a trying to attack married people (Basic theorem: Dating does not equal marriage). I am not trying to attack marriage. Some of this needs to be said I think and my brother is tired of
having to listen to me talk about it, so I am presenting it to a new
audience. Thank you to the consultants for your contributions.
This post is a bit longer. It is sort of dense perhaps, but I wanted to say it all in writing. Please give feedback if you desire. Tell me if you think I am wrong. Maybe I am completely out of touch on this topic. Tell me where you want to see improvement.
Because it is impossible to entirely avoid talking about religion when talking about dating, I have been forced to occasionally mention religion here. I wish this is not how it was, but it is. And might I suggest that dating is not a doctrine of the gospel, nor is it connected to the four fold mission of the Church? (At least the last I checked). Sure, principles of the gospel can therein be applied. But cultural traditions are never doctrines. You cannot have a testimony about cultural traditions. Yes, yes, yes, "Dating leads to marriage." I'll let you keep believing that. And marriage is indeed a doctrine of the gospel (This is actually true!) But see the theorem I stated above. Am I saying dating is wicked? No. Am I saying that I do not seek consistent chances to charge like a champion into the coliseum of this cultural tradition? No. This is actually why I am addressing this topic: I am actually in the pit. I do not enjoy a soft seat next to the copious pageantry of the procurator.
Be warned: Esto no es un post feliz. However, for the millionth time, please do not think I am trying to attack married people. I'm not trying to belittle your testimony.* I'm not trying to advocate for any current political causes. And I'm certainly not trying to get you to purchase insurance against roosters eating your turnips.
To be continued next week.
* As I postulated above, one cannot actually have a testimony of dating. It's like claiming to have a testimony about carrots. Carrots are not bad--they just cannot be assigned a truth value. And it would sound rather nuts to get up and claim that a group of concerned ladies wants you to feed them more carrots. Especially if they want those carrots from only a few gardens.
**Let's not even get into what the average marriage age rising means. More men and women are going to college. More men and women are going on missions. Averages are some of the weakest and least informative types of social statistics. Draw your own conclusions. Also keep in mind that there are multiple presidents of the Church who got married for the first time in their thirties. And several others got married in their later twenties. Furthermore, we still have yet to have a president of the Church who has followed the "approved/suggested" order of mission, marriage, college. If you play the "times have changed" card here, please don't pull it off the table in later installments of this post. If times have changed, then get your "back in my day" arguments out of the dating debate. You cannot have both eras. More on that later.
This post is a bit longer. It is sort of dense perhaps, but I wanted to say it all in writing. Please give feedback if you desire. Tell me if you think I am wrong. Maybe I am completely out of touch on this topic. Tell me where you want to see improvement.
Because it is impossible to entirely avoid talking about religion when talking about dating, I have been forced to occasionally mention religion here. I wish this is not how it was, but it is. And might I suggest that dating is not a doctrine of the gospel, nor is it connected to the four fold mission of the Church? (At least the last I checked). Sure, principles of the gospel can therein be applied. But cultural traditions are never doctrines. You cannot have a testimony about cultural traditions. Yes, yes, yes, "Dating leads to marriage." I'll let you keep believing that. And marriage is indeed a doctrine of the gospel (This is actually true!) But see the theorem I stated above. Am I saying dating is wicked? No. Am I saying that I do not seek consistent chances to charge like a champion into the coliseum of this cultural tradition? No. This is actually why I am addressing this topic: I am actually in the pit. I do not enjoy a soft seat next to the copious pageantry of the procurator.
Be warned: Esto no es un post feliz. However, for the millionth time, please do not think I am trying to attack married people. I'm not trying to belittle your testimony.* I'm not trying to advocate for any current political causes. And I'm certainly not trying to get you to purchase insurance against roosters eating your turnips.
Again, comment below if you desire. Or you can email me or write me a Facebook message. Do not try to come to my house, as the Witness Protection Program does not allow me to have visitors. This has hampered my ability to find a wife, but has admittedly increased my ability to eat cold cereal for lunch.
"Dating is dead." Sometimes I hear that phrase uttered. I have no idea whether this is true or not, as I have not checked the morgue lately. In what preliminary research I could do, there seems to be no formal (meaning they actually use academic methodologies) study on the matter, especially as it relates to the demographic (i.e. non-pagan white male) that I am part of. There are a few blog posts (all by women) on the matter and they usually take one of two sides: "Dating is dead and I blame men," or "Dating is dead and I am darn glad it is." Maybe some of you are on one of those two sides.
One thing that commonly comes up in my locale when speaking on this subject is the term "Hanging out." There was a "study" done around 2002 at my university by a man named Bruce A. Chadwick. I use the term "study" rather loosely, as he cites no sources and never actually seems to give much hard data on what he found. He references a prior study "of young women attending colleges and universities across the United States" that purported dating had disappeared, but he never actually manages to say who did the study or how they reached their conclusions. Chadwick's "study" is informally introduced in a devotional talk entitled "Hanging Out, Hooking Up, and Celestial Marriage."
Chadwick does make the rather baseless (IMHO) comment "It appears almost all of you
have the appropriate goal [to get married]; it seems that it is the
implementation that falls a little short," a claim which he fails to
ever back up with any sort of data. Even a 100-level statistics student should be able to tell you that such a claim could only be made if there was a study done showing that marriage (not dating) trends have declined because of hanging out. Yes, yes, yes, I know "the average marriage is rising." And has been since the Neolithic era. Let's be thankful that people have stopped marrying their 15-year old cousins.** But he fails to establish that fewer LDS people are getting married because of hanging out. But he stacks his straw rather well I guess.
The rest of Chadwick's speech is actually decently good, so I will commend him on that. But overall, the premise of his speech, and the comment "the implementation falls a little short," somehow seemed unsubstantiated. But maybe I just care too much about actual statistical evidence when such claims are used to affront my current situation.
Chadwick's aforementioned speech and "research" were cited as a source in the now famous "Dating versus Hanging Out" talk by Dallin H. Oaks, given May 1, 2005. Maybe such citation means that in fact Chadwick was preaching pure doctrine. Although, keep in mind that Elder Oaks also equally quotes from Time magazine, whose current issue (at the time I am writing this) has the headline "Strangers crashed my car, ate my food, and wore my pants." You be the judge.
I have mentioned before that this talk has become the dating doctrine for a lot of people. Elder Oaks explains social trends pretty well in his talk and he is absolutely on target with much of what he has to say. For my generation, this talk is sort of where "the dating (quasi)-doctrine" began its momentous ascent into the discourse of the social church. "Hanging out" became the vogue impropriety to blame and attack. Interpret this picture:
Those of you from the UK might name these anthropomorphic stacks of grass Aunt Sally, a phrase which here means "throwing wood chips at a pile of straw." I am going to be careful in wondering this, but sometimes I have to ask if hanging out is really the barn we need to burn.
One thing that commonly comes up in my locale when speaking on this subject is the term "Hanging out." There was a "study" done around 2002 at my university by a man named Bruce A. Chadwick. I use the term "study" rather loosely, as he cites no sources and never actually seems to give much hard data on what he found. He references a prior study "of young women attending colleges and universities across the United States" that purported dating had disappeared, but he never actually manages to say who did the study or how they reached their conclusions. Chadwick's "study" is informally introduced in a devotional talk entitled "Hanging Out, Hooking Up, and Celestial Marriage."
Chadwick does make the rather baseless (IMHO) comment "It appears almost all of you
have the appropriate goal [to get married]; it seems that it is the
implementation that falls a little short," a claim which he fails to
ever back up with any sort of data. Even a 100-level statistics student should be able to tell you that such a claim could only be made if there was a study done showing that marriage (not dating) trends have declined because of hanging out. Yes, yes, yes, I know "the average marriage is rising." And has been since the Neolithic era. Let's be thankful that people have stopped marrying their 15-year old cousins.** But he fails to establish that fewer LDS people are getting married because of hanging out. But he stacks his straw rather well I guess.The rest of Chadwick's speech is actually decently good, so I will commend him on that. But overall, the premise of his speech, and the comment "the implementation falls a little short," somehow seemed unsubstantiated. But maybe I just care too much about actual statistical evidence when such claims are used to affront my current situation.
Chadwick's aforementioned speech and "research" were cited as a source in the now famous "Dating versus Hanging Out" talk by Dallin H. Oaks, given May 1, 2005. Maybe such citation means that in fact Chadwick was preaching pure doctrine. Although, keep in mind that Elder Oaks also equally quotes from Time magazine, whose current issue (at the time I am writing this) has the headline "Strangers crashed my car, ate my food, and wore my pants." You be the judge.
I have mentioned before that this talk has become the dating doctrine for a lot of people. Elder Oaks explains social trends pretty well in his talk and he is absolutely on target with much of what he has to say. For my generation, this talk is sort of where "the dating (quasi)-doctrine" began its momentous ascent into the discourse of the social church. "Hanging out" became the vogue impropriety to blame and attack. Interpret this picture:
Those of you from the UK might name these anthropomorphic stacks of grass Aunt Sally, a phrase which here means "throwing wood chips at a pile of straw." I am going to be careful in wondering this, but sometimes I have to ask if hanging out is really the barn we need to burn.
To be continued next week.
* As I postulated above, one cannot actually have a testimony of dating. It's like claiming to have a testimony about carrots. Carrots are not bad--they just cannot be assigned a truth value. And it would sound rather nuts to get up and claim that a group of concerned ladies wants you to feed them more carrots. Especially if they want those carrots from only a few gardens.
**Let's not even get into what the average marriage age rising means. More men and women are going to college. More men and women are going on missions. Averages are some of the weakest and least informative types of social statistics. Draw your own conclusions. Also keep in mind that there are multiple presidents of the Church who got married for the first time in their thirties. And several others got married in their later twenties. Furthermore, we still have yet to have a president of the Church who has followed the "approved/suggested" order of mission, marriage, college. If you play the "times have changed" card here, please don't pull it off the table in later installments of this post. If times have changed, then get your "back in my day" arguments out of the dating debate. You cannot have both eras. More on that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment