LILEKS IS BACK! LILEKS IS BACK! with a vintage column: new Target, Ahhnold's gubernatorial bid, and then an awesome riff on the new bishop:
This story has irritated me from the start, and it has nothing to do with Rev. Robinson's sexual orientation. The guy left his wife and kids to go do the hokey-pokey with someone else: that's what it's all about, at least for me. Marriages founder for a variety of reasons, and ofttimes they're valid reasons, sad and inescapable. But "I want to have sex with other people" is not a valid reason for depriving two little girls of a daddy who lives with them, gets up at night when they're sick, kisses them in the morning when they wake. There's a word for people who leave their children because they don't want to have sex with Mommy anymore: selfish.Posted by jk at August 7, 2003 11:44 AM
I am just waiting for the Arnold-Arianna debate, do we get subtitles? But seriously, why do all politicians have to be lawyers and career public servants? What exactly were Ronald Reagan's qualifications other than president of SAG when he ran for governor?
Posted by: Silence Dogood at August 7, 2003 12:41 PMActualy, I'm rooting for Arnold big-time. He is anti-socialist from growing up with its failures and he seems a bit libertarian on social issues. I think he is smart and decent, that's not too bad a pairing these days.
Posted by: jk at August 7, 2003 01:22 PMIn defense of the virtue of selfishness, it is also the reason men DON'T leave their children and their wife. Being concerned "chiefly or only with oneself" keeps a man in his marriage because doing so is in his personal self-interest. (The reasons why are outside the scope of this comment.) The cause of abandoning a marriage for better sex is not selfishness, it is a thorough confusion of one's values and priorities. Ironically, one of the primary sources of this confusion is the moralistic commandment that a man must make sacrifices for the benefit of others. In attempting to live unselfishly, a man ultimately puts himself in a position that will threaten his life (to varying degrees of severity) and the only way to save his life is to act selfishly. Unselfishness is a suicidal concept.
Posted by: johngalt at August 11, 2003 09:54 AMHere is where I part company with Ayn Rand and Adam Smith. AT some point, selflessness kicks in and marriage is a good example.
Posted by: jk at August 12, 2003 07:49 AMHow? Can you cite an act of selflessness in marriage which you consider virtuous that is not also in the actor's selfish interest?
It is vitally important to recognize that acts which are truly selfless, i.e. they are for the benefit of another but have no corresponding benefit to the actor, are self-destructive and therefore are destructive to the marriage as well.
Posted by: johngalt at August 12, 2003 01:56 PMThis would be a good discussion for slow-news-August. I will move this up into a new post, unless I am beaten to the punch...
Posted by: jk at August 13, 2003 08:52 AM