Symposium: Hookups and Families

This article is in response to “Why Hooking Up Is Letting You Down” by J. Budziszewski and is part of the symposium, “Sex and the Polis: Perspectives on Marriage, Family, and Sexual Ethics.”

According to the great Scholastic tradition, man has been given a defined essence and the free ability to accept and accord with it.  Additionally, man is a naturally social being; every individual act has been woven through a complex social web that, to varying degrees, holds ramifications for the whole.  Thus, when corruption occurs within a particular arena of human experience, the impact is felt across society.

Recently explained by J. Budziszewski, the modern hookup culture stems from a grave misunderstanding of human nature.  We have been sold a false dichotomy of body and soul, one that purports “freedom” devoid of moral consequence.  Yet, in the process, we dishonor human dignity as our capacity for true intimacy is slowly undermined.  This effect is most clearly manifested in the growing prevalence of broken families, a sadly self-perpetuating reality of modern society.

The following passage by Budziszewski sets out two natural purposes and effects of a traditional, stable family.

“both [parents] are needed to raise [the child], because the male is better suited to protection, the female to nurture.  Both are needed to teach him, because he needs a model of his own sex, a model of the other, and a model of the relationship between them.”

Budziszewski thus describes the traditional role of the family as the classroom of virtue, the foundational unit of society.  Ideally, the great power of virtuous relationships is exemplified here by imitable models.  Yet, with this foundation undermined and the familial school of morality lost, we will continue in a self-perpetuating cycle of hookups and breakups, affairs and divorces, shattered homes and broken people.

What is needed?  People who will live heroic lives of virtue amidst this cultural drought.  They are needed in the family, the workplace, and on campus–setting and spreading an example of true human flourishing.  True, the 1960s shifted paradigms, but restoration belongs to our generation.