Category: Philosophy

The initial reaction to Governor Mark Sanford’s admission of infidelity has been to see it as one more example of the sexual depravity of politicians or perhaps of ambitious, successful men in general. Sanford was initially portrayed as another man who gave into sexual desire because he could, that is because some combination of the opportunities presented to him by women infatuated with power on the one hand, and his self-absorption, on the other, lead him risk his career and his family in pursuit of sexual pleasure. But, it did not take long for at least some people to see that Sanford is different. He’s no Eliot Spitzer pursuing sex with an expensive call girl. He’s no Jack Kennedy, keeping a few women on his staff for the purpose of satisfying him whenever he got the urge. No one in pursuit of just sex takes up with a woman thousands… Continue reading

Tension between generations undoubtedly goes back to the time when extended families or tribes became part of larger communities, thereby giving young people the possibility of forming attachments and loyalties outside their own tribe. It got a new source of energy when companionate marriage arose to challenge the right of parents to marry off their children as they saw fit. It intensified again when adolescence and a distinctive youth culture was created in the early twentieth century. And it took its contemporary form in the fifties and sixties when rock and roll and the pill made sex (and drug and rock n roll) panics the preferred manner in which the older generated condemned the behavior of the younger generation. The latest sex panic article appeared in the op-ed pages of the New York Times yesterday. A piece by Charles M. Blow reports that dating appears to be dying among young… Continue reading

A common conservative critique of homosexual marriage is that it will threaten the institution of marriage. This is, in many respects an odd idea. It is not obvious why granting the right to marry to people who do not now have the right but seek it threatens the very institution of which these people want to be a part. Nor, given the mess that so many heterosexuals make of marriage is it all the plausible to blame gays and lesbians for threatening the institution. But there is one argument that I have found carries a certain weight in anti-homosexual circles, the notion that accepting homosexual marriage will set us on a slippery slope to the widespread acceptance of polygamy. (The junior Senator in Pennsylvania evidently thinks that it will also lead to inter-species marriage.) Since some people in Utah do seek the right to have polygamous marriages, conservatives ask us how we… Continue reading