Revue des sciences politiques et des affaires publiques
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The Piety of Common Sense and the Common Sense of Piety: A Sensible Reaction to the Idea of Same-Sex Marriage

Brent Gilchrist

The potential effects on society of same-sex marriage are considered in light of Giambattista Vico’s New Science and its critique of modernity. As a universal foundation of human being as well as society, marriage should be preserved from radical changes that incite the disintegration of society and the redefinition of human being. Those who would have us ignore sex and gender differences seek an abstraction of human being that is characteristic of modern reason’s aggressive assault upon nature. Pre-rational foundations of reason are recalled in order to temper our thinking and to recognize and appreciate the imaginative and sensible foundations of human being and society, including marriage. To abandon these is the essence of impiety for Vico, rendering us into a re-animalization of man in which desires rule untempered by reason, but with reason as their servant. The abstract re-conceptualization of life levels us to a new and vicious barbarism.