*Best Of*: December 2003 Archives

I know you must often wonder: what is polyamory? Well here's a (nonsensical) guide: "Polyamory - What it is and what it isn't." Aside from being awkwardly written (avoiding some common contractions, but using one in the title, for instance), the essay is dull and boring. Plus, it's not based the slightest bit in reality. Anyway, what is "polyamory"?

Polyamory has been defined as the philosophy and practice of loving more than one person at a time with honesty and integrity. Synonyms for polyamory are responsible, ethical, and intentional, non-monogamy. Because those descriptions are somewhat clumsy, the term Polyamory was coined in the late 80's by a pagan Priestess, Morning Glory Zell, and defines a range of different lifestyle alternatives. In most cases, but not all, this involves some sexual or at least intensely intimate sensual behavior.

Let me summarize: you have sex with lots of people, but there won't be any complications if you all love each other.

The authors purposefully confuse all sorts of different meanings for "love".

Polyamorists say that love is an infinite, not a finite commodity. An example of this is with children. When my oldest daughter was born, I loved her with every ounce of my being. When my son was born, I found that I didn't have to give them half a love each, I could love them both fully. My third child is loved as much, if not more, than the other two.

It's absurd to assert that people love their children in the same way they love their spouse/whatever. You may as well say "I love pizza and I love hamburgers; in the same way, I can love both Jill and Heather." There are all sorts of different kinds of love, as I think we're all well-aware.

The authors also appear to have no understanding of what love really involves.

This also applies to friends - when you meet someone new, you don't have to think about who you are going to drop off to make them fit. As a woman said when explaining why she chose polyamory - "I refuse to accept the myth that I have to stop loving one person before I start loving another."

There's only so much time in the day. I'm sure we've all lost contact with friends due to lack of time. It's absurd to think a person could invest the amount of time necessary for a truly intimate loving relationship with a large number of people. In fact, most humans can't even maintain one healthy relationship (judging from the divorce rate).

And then, "falling in love".

Polyamorists say that love should be unconditional, rather than the monogamous proposition that "I will love you on the condition that you will not love anyone else" - "forsaking all others" is how it usually is put. And as shown by history, monogamy and marriage are no safeguards against falling in love with someone else.

And there's no way we can possibly control our feelings, is there? We're doomed to fall in love with other people and destroy our marriages! Except, of course, that loving someone is far different from "falling in love" (as we say). Loving someone involves a conscious choice, whereas "falling in love" is merely an emotional phenomenon.

The authors blather on a bit and then try to refute the idea that polyamory might displease God by quoting two atheists.

It is sinful - God doesn't like it.

"Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others." Oscar Wilde Chameleon.

"Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error." George Bernard Shaw

The sinfulness and wickedness of sex is based on the assumption that God doesn't like sex. This poison has its roots in Ancient Assyria, and the religions of Mythra and Zoroastrianism, which first put forth the idea of "the obscenity of the flesh." The sex drive, being one that cannot be denied, becomes a rich source of implanted guilt and shame, used to manipulate and degrade the individual. Therefore any sexual (natural) feelings need to be accompanied by shame, and therefore kept secret.

Of course, there's no real indication that God dislikes sex, so they're beating up a straw man. As they note, much of the Bible was written by polygamists. However, the authors aren't advocating polygamous marriage, they're advocating committment-free sexual liasons. The Bible makes it pretty clear that God wasn't thrilled with the idea of polygamy (see Solomon's downfall and Paul's instruction that church elders have at most one wife), even though he doesn't condemn it, but polygamous marriages laid responsibilities on all parties involved identical to the responsibilities in monogamous marriages. They weren't sexual free-for-alls.

Ok, there's a bunch more stuff I won't address directly. It's repetitive.

Their last point is the most absurd. After discussing jealousy at great length, they then ask an apparently rhetorical question that implies monogamy has no biological basis.

If monogamy is so natural and hardwired, why is there such a large relationship industry - the "How to make it right" of magazines, books, TV shows, marriage guidance, etc.?

Hm, could it be because we want successful monogamous relationships, but have trouble making them work? Maybe because we keep "falling in love" and never make a real decision to actually love someone in spite of our frequently fluctuating emotions? Could it be because nonsense like this polyamory paper twists and distorts people's understanding of love?

(HT: Random Walks.)

Speaking of movie scripts, Aaron Haspel has a nice disection of how Hollywood protrays the business world.

The anti-business movies deal overwhelmingly with schlock purveyors: yellow journalists (Citizen Kane), swampland peddlers (Glengarry Glen Ross), penny stock hustlers (Boiler Room), shady aluminum siding salesmen (Tin Men), and out-and-out gangsters (The Godfather). It's a Wonderful Life gestures half-heartedly toward the notion of quality as good business, as in the scene where Mr. Potter's rental agent lectures him on how all the nice houses in Bailey Park are killing his real estate business. But mostly it's more people vs. profits hoo-rah.

In a "pro-business" movie like Executive Suite, our hero, William Holden, is the research chief for the furniture company, and in his big speech, as he ascends to the chairmanship, he tells the board that the company will never sacrifice quality, profits be damned. That it might actually be more profitable to manufacture good furniture does not cross the screenwriter's mind.

Incidentally, if I ever hear an executive of a company I own stock in say "profits be damned", I'm going to immediately sell.

Most people don't understand capitalism, and think profits are evil. The root of the misunderstanding is that many people want companies to be "nice", but companies don't exist to benefit humanity any more than you as an individual do. Companies consist solely of the assets of people who have invested (shareholders), and those people expect their money to be used for their own benefit, just like you expect your money to be used for your benefit. As Neal Stephenson hammers home in his excellent
Cryptonomicon, people who invest in corporations are interested in one thing: increasing shareholder value. Every corporate executive should realize that increasing shareholder value is the only moral use of company assets.

Individuals should be charitable and generous with their own money, but no one has any business giving away money that belongs to other people.

Update:
Plus, the very existence of profit (absent monopolies and other market distortions (which are never entirely absent)) demonstrates that a company is providing a beneficial service to its customers as well as it's shareholders. As I explained here, trading in a free market is generally profitable for both parties -- otherwise one of the parties would refuse the trade. The economy isn't a zero-sum game; wealth is created through trading by redistributing resources to those who value them most.

Update:
Director Mitch notes that there just aren't any good bad guys left. But there's always someone richer than you to be jealous of!

Donald Sensing has a post denouncing the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (in response to a post by Rosemary on Dean's World), specifically American use of nuclear weapons as a response to the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city by terrorists. The term "Mutually Assured Destruction" isn't really apt anymore (and Rev. Sensing doesn't use it), because there are no other nations (Russia included) with the power to annihilate the United States. What MAD has morphed into is a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with the maximum possible force, rather than "proportional force". We have no desire to trade cities one-for-one with terrorists; as soon as they show a willingness to nuke us, game over -- we will respond with enough force to end the war immediately.

Rev. Sensing claims such a response would be immoral, but this quote makes me wonder if he understands MAD:

I reject a nuclear response that seeks simply to lash out at presumed enemies and make Arabs suffer for suffering’s sake. Killing just to kill would not be warranted even under such grievous circumstances.

There are two parts to MAD: the threat, and the follow-through. The threat is intended to convince our enemies that using nuclear weapons against us simply isn't worth it. Terrorists can't get nukes without the aid of some rogue nation (as Rev. Sensing points out -- North Korea or Iran, most probably), and the threat of MAD should serve to deter those nations from helping the terrorists.

It sounds like what Rev. Sensing most objects to, then, is the possibility that we'd actually follow through on the MAD threat if we were nuked. We've never had to before, but there's no guarantee that the threat itself will deter everyone forever. The threat itself is brilliant and costs no lives, but if we're ever nuked we'll be put in a tough position. Do we retaliate with overwhelming (non-proportional) force, as we threatened to do, or do we back down? If we back down, our future threats will be powerless and we won't have any means to deter future nuclear attacks. If we don't back down, and we actually obliterate a city or two in the nation(s) we determine were involved, we'll be responsible for killing a great many people who were only peripherally involved in the attack against us.

However, contrary to what some of Rev. Sensing's commenters claim, such retaliation would not be "murder" or "revenge" -- such terms have no meaning in war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed when we nuked Japan, but that action probably saved millions of lives (Japanese and American); it wasn't murder it was a strategic use of force calculated to end the war, and it did. Furthermore, since the utility of the threat wholly depends on our willingness to make good on it, it's not revenge to respond to an attack in the exact manner we guaranteed we would. If a thug pulls a knife on a cop, and the cop tells the thug to drop the knife or he'll shoot, it's not "revenge" for the cop to shoot the thug if instead of dropping the knife he charges to attack.

Far from being immoral, MAD is the only moral policy I've ever heard of that has a chance of deterring nuclear attacks against the United States. Rev. Sensing proposes some other possible methods in his post, but they'd all take years to implement, and would do nothing to prevent future nuclear attacks in the mean time. Rev. Sensing's proposals are all excellent long-term policies (most of which we should be doing now), but such possibilities will not be sufficient to deter our enemies from using nuclear weapons against us. You can't correct a child's behavior by threatening to send him to military school in ten years.

Update:
Rev. Sensing has updated his own post in response to mine. First, I'd like to say that I'm sure he's more familiar with MAD than I am -- it was his characterization of deterrence as mere "lashing out" that made me wonder.

By rejecting the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Rev. Sensing seems to leave no real purpose for their existence at all. We certainly won't use them pre-emptively, and if we won't use them in retaliation either then there's no reason to have them. We can't even threaten to use them if our enemies know we will never follow through.

He describes many dire consequences that may follow from our retaliatory use of nuclear weapons, and he's probably right about many of them. But are those possible consequences worse than seeing another US city nuked by terrorists? I'm not sure that's the case.

We could continue to deter Russia and other nuclear nations with the rest of our arsenal, and withdraw our soldiers from around the world if need be. It would obviously be a Bad Thing all around, but would it be worse than losing another US city to another nuke?

Would our retaliation prevent another attack? No guarantees, but it could sure motivate some of our enemies to clamp down on the terrorists in their midsts right quick. If not -- if they're determined to fight a nuclear war -- then we have no alternatives anyway.

As for furthering the cause of Christ... I'll have to consider it. Off the top of my head I can't think of an effective nuclear deterrence policy that would also win people to Jesus if it had to be used. War in general doesn't tend to turn people to Christ, but does that mean we should never fight? Some pacifists say so, but their positions aren't convincing.

In Candace's comment on "Banishing the Ugly" she brings another metaphor to mind.

Humbly, Michael. It's nice to at least feel understood, even more so to feel that one's words resonate with another.

Words are the bait, and ideas are the hook. What does anyone want more than to know and be known? As Paul wrote, knowing is the essence of love.

1 Corinthians 13:11-13

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I wish I could tell you everything I'm thinking (whoever you are). I wish you could know every stray thought that flitters through my mind. I've loved before, and felt the deeply painful need to know and be known, to lay myeslf utterly bare before some other miserably flawed human being and to be loved in return for exactly who I am. It's a longing that sex offers to fulfill, but cannot. God's perfect fellowship will complete it someday, but even when Adam walked in the Garden with his creator God knew it wasn't good for him to be alone.

I know a lot of beautiful women, but what catches my eye more quickly and surely than a pretty face is a knowing glance or tiny smile that tells me she gets it. Some off-hand remarks or inside jokes -- some strung-together words -- that show we're on the same page, that prove my thoughts aren't bouncing off the surface but penetrating the dark, secret place wherein she hides.

Wise counsel; subtle wit; easy laughter; sly, sparkling glances that scream I know! -- these are love to me.

Words are the bait, ideas are the hook. Take a look around, you might find something you like.

Will Baude says that premarital sex is virtuous:

I think it's generally unwise for people (particularly people who view monogamy as generally desirable and divorce as generally undesirable) to get married before they've begun having some sort of sexual relations.

Although he says "some sort of sexual relations", it's pretty clear from further text that he's referring to sexual intercourse itself.

The second part of Ms. Morse's view that I think is bad is her view that sex ought to be kept between spouses, or that sex's job is to bring spouses closer together. I think this is a cause-effect confusion.

Sex shouldn't be used to bring people close together-- it should be used to help us find people with whom we're compatible enough to be or grow close. (And marriage, as I said earlier, isn't always relevant to this closeness-- plenty of pairs unmarried people love each other as much or more than plenty of other pairs of married or ex-married people. Especially in a world where some of these unmarried people are legally forbidden marry the other unmarried the people they love.)

I've heard this argument before, and I'm not at all convinced. First of all, go read my dissection of a non-married love relationship which very clearly is not as intimate as a marriage; your mileage may vary, but I expect that the vast majority of "long-term relationships" are quite similar (maybe even many marriages?).

Secondly, I find it very easy to learn a great deal about women without having sex with them, or even "dating" them. I'm not particularly fond of the whole modern concept of "dating", for a whole host of reasons. To keep it short: I don't think it's possible to build a healthy relationship on romantic emotions. The foundation of dating is romance, and as most of us are probably aware it's quite easy to become attracted to someone we wouldn't particularly care to be friends with. Physical and emotional lust are powerful forces, and we're often eager to be tricked into thinking we actually love someone when it's all just emotional smoke and mirrors.

As I've written before, my strategy is pretty simple:

Mostly, I just live my life and try to make myself into a person that will be "A One" for the type of girl I hope to attract. I've probably got a long ways to go, but I'm working on it.

Dating and sex obscure and confuse the real issues involved with finding a mate in ways that "mere" friendship doesn't. Dating and sex lead to jealousy, lust, pride, selfishness, materialism, conflict, impatience, manipulation, cruelty, resentment, and uncountable other complications. Friendship has its pitfalls as well, but is generally much freer from such distractions.

Friendship allows me to see a woman for who she truly is, when she's not trying to impress anyone; friendship lets me be myself without needing to make an artificially-sculpted good impression. Dating, on the other hand, is all about creating a pretty show, complete with scripted dialogue and special effects. You tell me which is more conducive to really getting to know someone.

Mr. Baude writes further:

Marrying somebody without knowing whether they behave in a good or evil manner in bed is like marrying somebody without knowing what their favorite book is, or what their religion is, without knowing what they think constitutes moralvirtue [sic]. These things are too important, and too central to our very identies, to simply hope that they will work themselves out later like the question of whose parents get the first Christmas.

I agree it's an important issue, but there are a myriad of similarly important topics that are discussed before marriage, but deferred in action until afterwards. How will the children be raised? How will we spend our money? Who will work at what job, when? All of these are critically important issues to a marriage, and all of them (including sex) should be discussed frankly and openly beforehand. But I see no reason to doubt that the question of sex, just like the others, can be explored effectively and sufficiently without actual implementation.

Update:
I'd like to add that, although I've heard many married couples express regret over extra-/pre-marital sexual escapades, no couple who has waited has ever told me that they wish they hadn't.

Candace muses on why she writes, and she speaks for more people than just herself, whether she realizes it or not.

Writing jerks the hopes and dreams of our imaginations into the Real World and shoves them into people's faces. It's hard to say whether words or weapons have done more to set the course of history, but maybe the distinction isn't that important. "The pen is mightier than the sword" misses the point: words are weapons, and every strung-together collection is another battle waged to banish the Ugly and to conform the world to our peculiar vision.

In response to my "An Open Letter to Hawthorne Police Chief Stephen Port", Barry left a rather poetic comment about why he doesn't want anyone to carry concealed weapons. In part:

If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment's notice to possibly kill...a child. A homeless person. An innocent.

Lots of other commenters jumped on him, probably for two reasons: they thought his fears were irrational, and they thought the language he used was a bit over the top. I also think Barry's fears are unfounded, but I'm sure that his beliefs are widely shared by a minority of the general population. Many people simpy don't like guns, and wish they'd all go away.

Barry defends himself later on, and has now responded at greater length on his blog, Inn of the Last Home. Apparently, lots of people on other blogs were attacking him, or at least disagreeing with him in a determined and forceful manner.

I would feel uncomfortable carrying a loaded weapon. Very uncomfortable that I would possibly have the means to end a person's life within arm's reach. That doesn't mean I'm going to do it, or would ever be tempted. Just that fact makes me uncomfortable.

I also would feel uncomfortable knowing that anyone on the street, in the theatre, at a restaurant, at the supermarket could be carrying a loaded gun on their person. And here's why - despite training, despite temperament, despite the best of intentions: I don't trust you. That's simply it, I don't trust you. I don't trust a person who is not a licensed law enforcement officer of some kind - someone who, by virtue of their job, I would assume they have proper gun training - to carry a weapon. You may be a great person, love your kids, go to church, would never pull a gun in anger at another person - you may be supremely confident of that fact in your own mind, but I'm not. To me, you would be just as likely to be the one sticking up the fast-food clerk as the one defending him, or - in your possibly untrained and excited state - could be the one who with the best of intentions attempts to intervene but misses and hits someone else. Or you could be the one who gets pissed off at me in traffic and, instead of the flipping me the finger you pop off a few rounds at my back window.

I understood Barry's fears before, and this later explanation reinforces my earlier comprehension. Barry doesn't trust anyone (except, apparently, for some reason, police officers) and doesn't want anyone to carry lethal force around with them.

The problem is that it's precisely because of this lack of trust that other people choose to carry weapons. I sure as heck don't trust the people around me either, which is why I want to have means available to defend myself from them. In particular, the very people most likely to hurt me (violent psychos) are the people least likely to be restrained by laws prohibiting concealed carry.

All you have to do is watch the news and you'll see stories every single day about nuts shooting up schools, churches, movie theaters, bus stops, hospitals, work places, &c. That scares the crap out of me when I think about it! The police don't show up to draw chalk outlines until it's all over, but if I were there and I had a gun there might be something I could do. Maybe not, depending on the circumstances, but maybe yes. At least I'd have the best possible chance.

Furthermore -- and more importantly -- my right to carry a weapon does not in any way depend on Barry's comfort level. As I wrote yesterday, the freedom to keep and bear arms is the foundation of liberty. Without the means to exercise physical force it's impossible to be free: you're a slave to anyone who can overpower you. Others can like it or not, but that's morally irrelevant. Those who think like Barry would prefer to live a perfectly safe, perfectly enslaved life than a life filled with both freedom and the risk that inescapably accompanies it.

Bertrand Russel writes about obsessive love (in relation to Fitzgerald and Nabokov), and it reminds me of a previous thought I'd had: that no man is complete without some unobtainable love.

Those two authors write mostly about obsessive romantic love (or lust), but their characters stand for far more than mere sexuality (or even humanity). All men and women need an object of desire -- moral, spiritual, philisophical, material? -- to yearn for and strive after, knowing it can never be obtained. This is the essence of tragedy, and the foundation of greatness.

No one accomplishes anything great by aiming at the attainable. Greatness is achieved in incremental steps, to be sure, but the ultimate goal must stand forever out of reach or it's not even worth the effort. Greatness springs from tragedy; tragedy puts the accomplishments of life into scale, and reveals their greatness.

As a banal example, consider the SAT. If everyone received perfect scores, what significance would the test have? It would tell us nothing about anyone's abilities, intelligence, knowledge, or determination. Tragedy serves the same purpose; by highlighting the failures and disappointments of life, success can be elevated to the level of greatness. By striving for impossible goals, through obsession with the unattainable, a man is stretched to his fullest extent and his greatness can be rightly judged.

Donald Sensing mentions that web-hostile Bill O'Reilly thinks the internet needs to be made "safe for democracy", but that opinion belies a profound misunderstanding of democracy. As the Iraqis are discovering, democracy doesn't need to be safely provided for: democracy itself constructs a safe environment to exist within by making it hard for the elites to hold power, and by distributing power to the masses.

Democratic power is primarily established by the right to keep and bear arms, and secondarily by the rights to private property, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, &c. These rights are the foundation of a liberal democratic society, and they don't need any external management to protect them. Naturally, the self-styled "elite" would like to administrate these rights -- for the benefit of all! -- but top-down interference actually ends up making democracy and freedom less secure, rather than more. The "elite" are well-aware of this fact, and they seek to make us all less free so as to accumulate power for themselves. It's fine that they try (that's the essence of competition), but it doesn't mean they're right or that we should let them succeed.

I have an acquaintence -- let's call him "T" -- who had been receiving diability payments from his "job" for over a year because he found a psychiatrist to write him a note claiming he had a psychological malady called "stress" that prevented him from working. I don't know the exact nature of T's "stress", but seeing as how it stemmed from managing a retail clothing store I find it hard to believe that it kept him from doing any sort of work for over a year. Nevertheless, due to California's absurd workers' compensation system, his employer had no choice but to continue paying T while he sat at home drinking and playing video games.

This type of forced coverage of nonsensical claims is part of what makes California so unattractive to employers, and refomring the workers' compensation system was one of Governor Arnold's top campaign priorities. Republican state Senator Ross Johnson is introducing a bill to implement some changes, and is particularly targeting intangible psychological claims.

Claiming a psychological injury is already the most-difficult kind of disability to prove. But Johnson says because the pain is literally all in the workers' mind, they should have to offer better proof that their employer caused it.

Psychiatrists don't like the sound of that. They say it smacks of discrimination against their field.

Uh, yeah. I'm not a psychologist, but I play one on TV and I've taken a good number of graduate-level psychology classes. The field is 50% BS and 50% "we don't know what it means, but when we do A we get B". Heck, maybe that makes it 100% BS. Anyway, the point is that I have no problem discriminating against a field that has just about as much legitimacy in my mind as palmistry. I'm exaggerating, but you get my point.

His bill would also restrict the reasons for which a worker might claim a stress disability. Pressures that are common to all fields of employment, for example, would not be allowed as cause for a psychological injury. A worker also could not be compensated for a psychological illness that arose from the stress of disciplinary action, job transfer or being fired.

"It is equally sensible to ensure that the everyday stresses we all experience in the workplace do not give rise to a claim for benefits," Johnson said.

Well, duh. It's an unfortunate sign of the decadence of our culture that this even has to be said and coded into law.

Strangely, the California Psychiatric Association doesn't approve of the bill, which would drastically reduce their prestige and clientele.

"We felt that it would create an incentive for an intrusive investigation of patients that would increase costs without benefiting the worker," Hagar [the director of government affairs for the California Psychiatric Association] said. "Psychiatric injury already has a higher burden of proof. And the bill seems predicated on the assumption that there is some sort of evidence of over-utilization of psychiatry, which is absolutely untrue.

"And, it is discriminatory against the field and against the patients who have legitimate injuries."

The problem is that workers are being unfairly benefitted at the moment; this bill tries to level the playing field, and reduce the cost to businesses of absurd claims. Hopefully, those with "legitimate injuries" will still be able to get treatment. However, people like T who get stressed out from folding clothes and adding up numbers should be prevented from leeching off the system.

The Hawthorne Chief of Police Stephen Port has denied my application for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and I'm going to deliver a Public Records Act Request this afternoon to gather information for a possible lawsuit. According to the text of the law, it looks like the Hawthorne Police Department will have ten days to make the records available (or at least to make a determination as to their availability). Ten calendar days from now is Christmas, but as you can imagine I'm eager to see that my rights as protected under the national Constitution and the constitution of the State of California are enforced.

Update:
I submitted the PRAR without much fanfare, and had my brother go with me to witness it. Now we'll see what happens....

I'm skeptical of Donald Sensing's description of Jesus' instruction to "turn the other cheek" as an admonishment to resist oppression. Here's the passage in context:

Matthew 5:38-42
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

It seems very clear to me that Jesus is not advocating resistance or even civil disobedience. This passage comes right after the Beatitudes, where Jesus says "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."

Rev. Sensing writes:

In the culture of the day, backhanding someone was a gesture of contempt. It was how you treated someone who was beneath you in class and status. To give someone the back of your hand was to say by gesture, "Remember your place! I am superior to you!" It was how a father rebuked his son, a brother his sister, a husband his wife and a master his slave or servant.

That being so, Jesus’ advice to turn the other, or left, cheek to be struck is loaded with symbolic meaning. It is certainly not advice to be submissive to evil. It has at least two loaded meanings:

- I deny that I am inferior to you and I demand you acknowledge me as your equal by striking me a forehand blow, and

- as your equal, I have the right to strike you back.

Turning the other cheek actually could well have been Jesus’ admonishment to the people under oppression by the Romans and class structures to stop being passive and start resisting, but never to be the aggressor and to provide an opportunity for the oppressor to ponder the evil of his ways.

It's not that I disagree with Donald's conclusions, I just don't think this passage is implying what he says it does. Taken in context with Jesus' other teachings, I don't see any way to infer that he was advocating any resistance to Roman power. Jesus' main concern was spiritual warfare, and he never seemed to worry about physical oppression on this fallen earth.

The use of the word "also" seems significant to me as well, since it implies "in addition to" rather than "instead of".

Update:
Donald posts more, and comments on my post here as well.

My main disagreement with him isn't on whether the social order should change (it should) but rather on the method. Let's look at Ephesians 6 for more insight.

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

19 Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

First, consider the slaves Paul writes about. Does this passage imply that slavery is good? Of course not. But Paul also doesn't tell the slaves to flee -- rather he instructs them to serve their masters in a Godly way, so as to be examples of goodness. Liekwise, masters were reminded that they too had a Master in heaven who would hold them accountable. Paul's focus wasn't on changing the social order, but rather on changing the hearts of those involved.

Secondly, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Our battle isn't against this world order -- the sinful world we live in is only a symptom of the greater spiritual illness that infects our species. Fighting to change the system isn't bad, but treating the symptoms directly is ultimately useless if the disease isn't cured. Only by fighting in this spiritual battle can hearts be turned to Christ, and the material world will follow. All the equipment Paul lists is spiritual in nature, and this is the front where the real battle for souls is fought.

Thirdly, Paul himself was a prisoner of the oppressive Roman Empire, and he never railed against it. On the contrary, he took every opportunity to work within the system and to subvert the hearts of those he came into contact with. In the book of Acts, he says that while he was held prisoner in Rome many of the emperor's personal guards listened to him and became Christians. Eventually, Paul was put to death for his beliefs, and he never resisted the fate God had in store for him (in fact, he counted it a joy). If he had fought, he might have brought about some change to the government system, but at what cost to the cause of Christ?

Finally, we know the end of our world and everything in it: destruction. The day will come when every man and woman will stand before God to be judged, and on that day our civilization will come to an end. There's no purpose in trying to save it, because it will eventually pass away. The only things of any value are people, because people last forever.

Injustice is bad, oppression is bad, and the Bible constantly warns those in authority to use their power for good, but if we Christians allow ourselves to be distracted from our spiritual war by the battles of this world, we're falling into a trap.

Update 2:
Some further thoughts:

1 Corinthians 7:20-24
Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.

Paul says it here pretty clearly: if you can relieve oppression, it's good to do so -- but don't be overly bothered by it. He recasts the physical situation in spiritual terms, and points out that no matter what our earthly circumstances are, they're of far less consequence than our spiritual standing before God.