Situational Ethics

Somewhat shorter Ross Douthat: Gosh, Wally, wasn't the 1950s just swell? Sure they cheated at baseball back then too, but it was sports cheating at its best. Why don't we just forgive that scamp Roger Clemens for the sake of auld lang syne?

For a man who makes his living as a moral scold, it sure is odd to see him advocate ignoring the breaking of Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments. But maybe he just makes allowances for any situation that doesn't include a woman voluntarily having sex.

Sinners, Beware!

I like Lisa Schiffren. Her moral scold instincts are even greater than her political instincts, and we end up with a post that snarks on Bristol Palin instead of a more Party-friendly response.

Mr. Johnson, who sees the baby frequently, will continue to be an involved father, the story reports. Or maybe he won't. Or perhaps he will sometimes, when he isn't busy, unless he gets involved with someone else who doesn't want that. Ms. Palin will continue to be the mother full time—because she doesn't have a choice.

Heh.

I certainly don't know if they should have gotten married. You'd have thought so . . . even if it didn't last forever. Better odds for the kid. If the parents didn't like it, well, they should have thought about that when they were drinking and fooling around. But, as we all know, shotgun marriages lead to plenty of unhappiness, some of the time. And very young marriages have a lousy track record. So parents of the expecting teens are not willing to push. And maybe they are sometimes right. Still, the default position of the girl, left on her own with the baby, now in serious and immediate need of further education and a set of remunerative skills with which to support herself and Trip, but which will be harder to acquire with her maternal responsibilities, isn't much of a happy picture either.

You go, girl. Why should a rich girl get away without suffering from her sinning when a poor girl can't? But Schiffrin's approach isn't typical. The proper response, in conservative circles, is to cry privacy and beg others to leave the poor child alone, now that they can no longer flog her situation for political gain. And when you want mindless cliches and horse-blinkered myopia you go to Miss Kathryn Jean Lopez.

On the specific story here: I wish the name Bristol Palin never appeared in any political commentary, but here we are. [yap yap yap] Let the girl live in peace with her child.

While you hound every other unwed girl in the county, of course.

Megan is Immoral

Megan's immorality in action:

But without the Republicans, the plans costs are certain to go up
considerably, including, probably, giving bankruptcy judges the power to rewrite
mortgages. This sounds wonderful--until you realize that this means
mortgage rates will go up for everyone, probably quite a bit. And that
this will further strain an already weak industry. Why use jinglemail, or
struggle to meet your payments, if you can pay a lawyer $1,000 and magically
transform your mortgage into a prime loan?

She assumes that because she would not act morally without coercion, neither would anyone else. And of course she is proposing that the banks etc. get help but not the taxpayers, who would be the ones paying for the banks' help. Welfare for elite people like me, nothing for little people like you.

She doesn't know what's in the package, doesn't know what the effect will be if it is passed or not passed, and doesn't try to figure out if it will be enough anyway. But her Authority Leader suggested it, so she knows it must be passed. One might as well go to a parrot for advice.

This Dear Soul

I thought my dear must her own soul destroy,
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
--William Butler Yeats


This poem is blessedly simple to understand. Yeats' protagonist fell in love with a fanatical, hateful woman. But he wanted her, so he created a false image to superimpose on her. He believed what he wanted to believe, instead of seeing the truth. Why? The real reason is much uglier than the fantasy. Need, vanity, lust--there are a hundred reasons, none of them attractive to look at.

I want you to look at something. Megan discusses the bailout and uses the homeless as an example. Her argument can be summed up with this bit:

How much money are we willing to pay to maintain our sense of
fairness?

And there you see where Megan lives. The smooth hair and placid, unlived-in face, the MBA wreathed in the "glory" of the Chicago Boyz, the cloying networking, the prep school education, the sidewalks of New York and designer shoes and dresses: They originate in the foul rag and bone shop of her heart. Her vanity and callousness, her love of luxury, exclusiveness and privilege, her smirking disregard for torture, poverty, pain and illness. That is what Megan McArdle really is. That is the creature who passes for a human being, the daywalking vampire who would drain the blood of her country to satisfy her base lusts.

She is revolting.

Kathryn Jean goes to the movies.

Katy Jean has taken off time from her approaching nuptials to attend a showing of Sex and the City, the movie. And why wouldn't she, with her mind on wedding dresses, converting to her new religion, and kidnapping luring meeting Mitt Romney at the Little Church Around the Bend?
Kathryn Jean finds a problem right away, no doubt to her dismay.

Here’s a movie that in many ways was a beautiful — albeit crass and p.c. and
graphic (like the late television show) — love story. Here’s a movie with
suffering and joy and life and cultural lessons, but some of the people I heard
leaving the theater didn’t seem to have been affected.
...

But there’s hope: Even the girls I walked out of the theater with might think twice
before they stomp all over the hearts of their Mr. Big or Steve, and they might
realize that the deeper message of the film is that it’s not hooking up but true
love and marriage and children they want.

We'll avert our eyes from the "hip" "lingo" and ask how it is that Sex and the City is able to influence the heart of even the stoniest New York gal?

The movie, like the series, is an important cultural contribution. It’s a
mirror. And you don’t have to be promiscuous or crass like Carrie and Samantha
and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) tend to be to see a
reflection.

It's only a mirror if your view of the world was formed when you overdosed on Disney movies when you were ten. Otherwise it's a soap opera, Cinderella version, with all the traditional elements--romance, heart ache, best friends, cute guys, riches, nice dresses, and cool shoes. But there's trouble in Happily Ever After, and the women must decide if they really want their Prince Charmings after all. Kathryn Jean doesn't understand the problem. In Sex and the City:

There is a real focus on men, and on what women do to men: Women don’t forgive men. Women don’t think about men and their feelings. For as sensitive as the modern man is supposed to be to a women’s feelings and as sensitive as a man is supposed to look, he’s not really supposed to register an opinion. Or slip up. Or be honest.

Why would the women treat the men this way? Kathryn Jean is glad you asked. It's because "[Carrie] didn’t care about [Mr. Big's] side of the story." She and her friends are "self- and sisterhood-obsessed." The woman doesn't count. "And she doesn’t quite realize that, for her, it really is about her." How dare she think her own life was about her? Doesn't she know it's about "true love and marriage and children."? In other words, marriage is about your husband and children, what they want, not what you want. That's being selfish. And marriage and children is what all women want, according to Katy Jean. That's the only way to be happy.

The poison poured into the ear of this woman as a child must have been incredible. You don't matter. What you want doesn't matter. It's selfish to please yourself. It's promiscuous to pick your own partners. You exist to serve men and children. If a man cheats on you, take him back and forgive him; it's your Christian duty.

No wonder she's such a mess.