Site Presented By
Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
pdxjoe
Published Letters: 27 Editor's Choice: 2
"Because we can't count on anybody to help us."
There it is.
It's apparent that from Cary's reaction and those of many of the commenters so far, the issue isn't whether the guy's a miser---because who's a bigger miser, this dude or the CEO of more half the corporations in the world, who consume vicariously through consumers, living off the life and labour of others?---but that he reveals the obscene supplement to their comfortable Capitalist lives: the destitute poverty on which it depends for its existence. In other words, the boyfriend wins the Capitalist game of life (i.e. make lots of money), but not by the same rules as those criticizing him on the LW's behalf. What's worse is he seems to be at least as satisfied with his life as she does, but on radically different terms.
"Really. I mean, if she's going to keep on like this -- and she shows no sign of stopping soon -- then she has to start putting condoms on the men she has sex with. Otherwise she's a public health risk."
Christ. It would be one thing to say that she should not have irresponsibly random sex or else she's a health-hazard. To that end so are the men having sex with her. It is not incumbent upon a woman to make sure someone else's organ is protected if that someone else is in charge of the organ. You know, unless we're talking about babies and diapers.
I bet it would also ring true in Cary's ears that unless a woman is constantly saying no to sexual advances by men, then men can rightfully assume she's fair game. The irresponsibility of this woman's actions is not strictly hers, 'cause I bet she's not holding a gun to the heads of those she's screwing, so there is still a choice to be made by someone else.
You ask how long you should wait for this to "resolve" itself. Some commenters callously tell you to just bail, pointing out the supreme fact of this life in late capitalism: you are the only one who matters. You're quick to note how relatively trivial this all is if pursued too zealously. I think that means you're already on the right track to getting the resolution you want.
The thing is, it won't come in the form of an answer to the literal question "how long do I have to wait?" This isn't a question searching for numerical answers, but a way of working out your love for your husband or not. The real question isn't how long, but can I wait? It sounds like you love him though, to which I say that is all the answer you need to your question.
Moral critics-- of a lot of things, but in this case GTA 4-- make arguments along the lines of how such-and-such encourages such-and-such behavior. This is a world where humans are only meaningfully defined by their incapacity to make a choice. They make arguments along the lines that if we allow gay civil unions or marriage even, then we've practically made it a requirement that people have them. Oh, no, the Jones are a homosexual couple-- how do we compete with that?
There is something so bizarre about this kind of thinking, and what offends it the most is the thought that people have choices they can make and that they should be allowed to freely choose. Choice includes stupid and awful shit. If it didn't, John Savage at the end of Brave New World wouldn't have had the kind of conversation he had with Mustapha Mond. Savage choses "the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." Moral critics of the sort who come around and bash GTA, at least so ineloquently as most do, are like or fancy themselves to be like the rulers of Brave New World's universe. People are only allowed to enjoy when it is not their enjoyment, but of others.
So, when moral critics come out against GTA, saying it encourages, which we know practically means holds a gun up to your head and forces you to commit, violence, they give new meaning one of the most peculiar phrases of the last 8 years: "They hate us for our freedom."
People who refuse to look at and acknowledge pain hate life. Life is not reducible to pain, but neither is it reducible to its absence. We are not the better because we indulge in pain, but neither are we because we avoid it. We are better because we understand it, but we cannot understand it unless we engage it.
Yes, everything we encounter and experience in our life, for better or worse, becomes a part of us. Are you going to choose how you make it part of your life?
We do not need to play GTA 4 in order to understand human dignity---I don't---but to say that doing so already makes such an understanding impossible is cowardly, life-hating bullshit. It's like saying that homosexual marriage de-sanctifies heterosexual marriage. It's also like saying you cannot love your enemy. If you are not strong enough to respect what you claim to hate, then there is no hope of respecting what you claim to love.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
