... no true philosopher ever marries. Except for Socrates, and he did it just to be ironic.

Although, even Socrates sent his wife away before he committed suicide. Her feminine sobbing would ruin the aesthetic perfection of the moment.

... no true philosopher ever marries. Except for Socrates, and he did it just to be ironic.

Although, even Socrates sent his wife away before he committed suicide. Her feminine sobbing would've ruin the aesthetic perfection of the moment.

"Why would anyone trust an artist, thinker or philosopher with no knowledge of roughage, bills, garbage disposal or noise, whether married or single?"

Good lord - why wouldn't I? One does not have to wade aroudn in the physical or emotional detritus of life in order to produce art.

Garbage and bills might be what life is all about but doesn't have to be what art is all about - art, after all, often seeks to transcend what is known and known to be possible.

There is definitely some merit to the notion that producing good, not to mention great, art requires more solitude and selfish attention to one's own needs than a marital or familial relationship allows - especially if members of the relationship expect there to be an equal division of household labor.

Double post, and a grammatical error.

"would've ruined the..."

Can total relate Svutlana to post post traumatic syndrome.

Am no absolute sure, but think that Nietzche never have sex either, so have extreme focus on philosophical work.

Perhaps need for expand job description for great men of genius to include celibacy.

...if so many women weren't dishonest, parasitic narcissists who are never satified and who bleed men dry financially and emotionally while denying them love, sex, understanding, and compassion as soon as the I do's are uttered, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, it seems to be in their nature to be so. It's not a recent phenomenon either. Just read some of the history of ancient Rome and the troubles cause by just this type of behaviour. I have no doubt that animal studies of other social primates would see the same thing. Oddly, it's been my experience that women who are the worst examples of this, like my ex-wife, are also the ones who are the quickest to point to the same traits in other women. Takes one to know one, I guess.

But my personal question is: Why would anyone trust an artist, thinker or philosopher with no knowledge of roughage, bills, garbage disposal or noise, whether married or single? Isn't that a good part of what this thing known as life is all about?

Answer: Nobody would, because no such artist exists -- except as a strawman in the minds of those who would prefer to shift attention away from the real point of this article.

Marriage is all about compromise. In order to make it work, one is always forced to sacrifice personal space, time and goals. It is almost impossible to achieve greatness under those kinds of restraints, especially in creative, artistic fields. In the end, either the relationship falls apart because one is spending "too much" time at work, or the quality of the work suffers because of family obligations. The idea that one can "have it all" and need not choose between the two is a feminist fairy tale.

Best advice I ever got about marriage was this: Wait until you have achieved your personal dreams (owning a business, writing a novel, becoming a millionaire, etc.) before even thinking about "settling down" and tying the not. It is hard enough to climb those mountains without carrying the heavy obligations of marriage on your back.

From Foucault's History of Madness:

Family and its requirements became one of the essential criteria of reason, and it was above all in its name that confinement was demanded and obtained.

--with apologies for getting all theory-based, but this quote just seemed to pop out as I was reading the article. Why? Partially because I think we do tend to hold the family unit up as the norm, and anyone not normal is suspect.

Look, family and marriage is great, and for every male "genius" who got married and went into decline, there's probably at least another who didn't. Having said that, there's no question that solitude is not a convenience for anyone who would pursue art or philosophy seriously, it's a basic requirement. Rilke, another great loner, tried to convince his wife that married partners should be "guardians of each other's solitude." (They ended up separated and I think eventually divorced.)

If the author had stopped at just making that point, probably no one would disagree -- then again, he probably wouldn't have a book. Sounds like he's also taking on the beliefs of a whole culture (and trashing women to boot?), and that's always going to stir things up.

I was going to write something about genius and masturbation going hand in hand but I thought better of it.

While I think the question of engagement with humanity as a prerequisite for useful philosophy is a valid one, I don't think Orlet's basic premise is all that troubling generally. Relationships, romance, marriage, these things take time (and lots of it), no matter your gender and no matter your orientation. It's doubtless better for us as human beings to, well, interact with other human beings, but how does it affect the productive output of that certain type of genius obsessive?

I mean, historically, we can pull all kinds of examples and counter-examples. Godet was completely non-functional without his wife (and indeed, in one of the more heartbreaking examples of utter madness, starved to death shortly after she passed away), but I think for a particular breed of only slightly less insane genius, it's pretty clear that other people are just a distraction (Orlet probably has plenty of examples, but Glenn Gould and Beethoven spring immediately to mind).

I would posit the main reason Orlet targets men particularly with his thesis is that there has, traditionally, been less opportunity for women to (ahem) cloister themselves away from the rest of the human race to obsessive chip away at Great Works. In Europe (and mostly elsewhere in the world as well), women have had fewer educational opportunities and have been distinctly likely to be married off whether they like it or not. The spinster has always been far more vilified than the bachelor. If women were even permitted to pursue meaningful artistic or intellectual pursuits outside the narrow realms of womanly pursuits, odds are good that credit for their work was stolen by the men in their lives. And those who sought to break through these barriers have not usually had an easy time of it. Is it any surprise that there are relatively few solitary genius, borderline (or full-blown) autistic female philosophers out there? No, because these are behaviours which have not oft been tolerated in women, even in those circumstances when the educational and financial resources would have otherwise been available.

Would Georgia O'Keeffe have been as productive artistically had she been saddled with a more possessive (or longer-lived) husband? I sincerely doubt it.