I am deeply indebted to James, a reader who passed along this commentary on l'affaire Spitzer mass e-mailed to him from the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner, the big cheese of Tikkun magazine, founding member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and erstwhile spiritual adviser to Hillary Clinton. Truly, Rabbi Lerner is the Maimonides of our time:
The cross-the-political-spectrum attacks on Elliot [sic] Spitzer and the intensity of the demands that he resign his office show just how far the Right-wing sexual moralizing has been able to trump any other kind of ethical reasoning in American society.
... [U]ntil sexual satisfaction is so broadly available in our society that no one has to pay for it and so deeply tied to love that no one is objectified in the process, this kind of exploitation of women and degradation of sex is likely to continue. [Emphasis mine -- RD.] All of these practices foster the sexual predators of the contemporary world.
So Elliot [sic] Spitzer deserves to be critiqued and ought to be doing deep atonement for what he did. ... But the intensity of the critique of the N.Y. governor, tied with the demand that he resign, shows more about American society's ethical perversity than about Spitzer.
Hilarious. You can't make this stuff up, and if you could, you could get hired by the writing staff of The Onion.
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JPL: It's France, not the USA, that is the outlier, with respect to attitudes to sex, and in some othe ways. My gut-feeling is that the USA is more prurient than most European countries, but generally more like them than France is. Leaving aside the validity of Christian sexual morality, I don't think that the sexual morality of politicians is a non-issue - the persecution of Clinton may have been OTT, but at least it sent a message that powerful men can't treat their interns/typists/etc. as a private harem. I find it surprising that you pick Sarkozy as your positive example - it's difficult to think of a more straightforwardly sleazy politician in Europe.
Another post referred to gays having sex in bushes in Holland. Now, I don't approve of that behaviour, but it does show, to an absurd degree, a genuine liberalism about sexual behaviour. In France, unlike Holland, it's much more about money, power, glamour, etc. Holland is much more easy-going and egalitarian than France, partly because it's a small, unimportant country.
About prostitution, I suppose there are basically two takes:
1. Next to rape and paedophilia, it's about the worst sexual behaviour there is. In both rape and prostitution, the man says "your desires don't count - I have the physical/financial power".
2. Prostitution is merely the performance of a service. The genitals are no intrinsic to one's self than are the brain and hands, so why is it worse paying someone to have sex with you, than to clean up after you, or work in your call-centre or factory?
I side with the first take, but I do think it is debatable.
"their insistance that both religion, and people's private lives, stay OUT of government."
I think the USA has got the relationship between religion and state kind of less wrong than most other countries. I have heard there are states where a politician legally cannot be an atheist, and I also heard something about objections to Hindu prayers in Congress - I think those are clearly wrong (although I don't know enough about them to be certain). However, most never-Communist European countries have established churches - even in Catholic countries the church is effectively established (eg. the Spanish monarchs are "Los Reies Catolicos", and the Irish Constitution says that Catholicism is the principal religion). The big exception is France, but laicite there amounts to secularism being established as the state church, somewhat analogous to the situation in the least oppressive among the Iron Curtain regimes - state atheism is just as objectionable as state religion.
It's just not worth more of my time to try to convince someone of the obvious ties between our revolution and the French Revolution, which is taught in every high school history book in the country. And apparently they didn't detest the French so much that they didn't send Franklin to Marseilles to beg for weapons, money, and support. Or forming an Alliance with them in 1778? Or owing them $11 million dollars at war's end for the supplies. I guess their detestation didn't run too deeply.
JPL, Perhaps you aren't aware that the French government which nobly aided the United States in our War of Independence was that of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVI. No wikipedia necessary to recall that fact, thank you.
You're the one who, for no apparent reason, interjected France into the discussion. I have nothing against French culture, nor do I hold the United States up as the exemplar to the world in all matters of governance or sexual mores.
But neither is France the standard by which other nations ought to be judged. And that's especially so when we are being lectured by historically challenged Francophiles who think the French Revolution somehow inspired the American War of Independence that preceded it.
Simon and JPL: It's probably more accurate to say that both the French and US revolutions picked up on Enlightenment ideas that had been floating around for decades. France and the USA are obviously the two main heirs of the Enlightenment, and the differences between their interpretations are interesting.
Fair enough, rombald. But note also that the "Enlightenment" is a broad term for 18th century intellectual trends in general. The reality included many different, sharply divergent philosophical and political ideas. Joseph II and the Marquis de Pombal were figures of the Enlightenment, as were such diverse thinkers as Voltaire, Locke, Kant, Rousseau, and Hume.
Personally, I'll take Dr. Johnson over the lot of them.
Ah, Simon, you spur me to comment there, since I looked into my well-worn copy of "The Life of Samuel Johnson" just the other day, while pondering the prostitute-patronizing habits of my dissolute pal, James Boswell. I'm sure you know how much Dr. J detested Americans and everything about America. How do you feel living in a country which, by his standards, ought never to have existed?
Here's another interesting quote from Johnson that I recalled just now because it was the page to which the book opened in my earlier search:
"We may be excused for caring little about other people's children, for there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be observed that men, who from being engaged in business, or from their course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child of my own."
Mrs. Thrale: "Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?"
Johnson: "At least, I never wished to have a child."
Well, this certainly puts the kibosh on the Bratz doll discussion, as well as many an argument about pro-natalism. ; )
And one more comment from the great Doctor:
"For my part, Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious."
How a propos. I have no idea who the Marquis de Pombal is, so if you want to bring in some trendy quotes from him, I'd be most pleased to read them.
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