The Archetypal Argument Against Marriage Equality? Really?!

Hi, Milrepa --
Your argument against civil marriage equality is based on archetypes?

You say, “Archetypes are the true language of our species, and transcend culture, they are ubiquitous among mankind.”

Your archetypal universe is static, leaden and limited.

I enjoy Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell as well as their work relating to myth and archetype. However, I don’t see either concept as legitimate predication for denying same-sex couples the legal right to marry civilly.

One of the salient components of language - archetypal or otherwise - is its lack of stasis. There is an innate quality to language permitting evolution and diversification over time. Your particular model lacks this dynamic quality.

The symbols and rules of all language are, by nature, largely arbitrary. While thoughts can be represented acoustically, physically or in graphical symbol systems, the symbols are not universally experienced, utilized or expressed culture-by-culture.

While certain archetypal motifs emerge in different cultures, their number and semiotic quiddity are all not identically perceived, articulated, or interpreted, across all cultures.

Happily, Jung noted that there is no fixed number of archetypes. As the psyche operates in the realm of the infinite, its expression ought to necessarily do the same.

Finally, the Gay person in many respects IS the hypostatic union - the archetype of united opposites (Jesus as “Christa” or Avalokiteshwara as “Kuan Yin,” etc.).

Civil marriage would enable two people of archetypal complementarity to be legally joined.

--ez duz it, Copyright © 23 June 2011