An ongoing review of politics and culture
by Reihan Salam
Ross's Best Column Yet?
The highlight of the latest Douthat column is definitely the creative matchmaking at the end.
Maybe this reversal could start with some creative matchmaking across lines of class and politics. The dutiful, somewhat-boring husbands from Sandra Tsing Loh's Los Angeles, for instance, sound like ideal soulmates for Kate Gosselin, the soon-to-be-single mother of eight.
And as for Cristina Nehring, who can't live without being "derailed by love, hospitalized by love, flung around five continents, shaken, overjoyed, inspired and unsettled by love" — well, maybe someone should introduce her to Mark Sanford.
One small wrinkle: I wouldn't wish Kate Gosselin on my worst enemy. After watching Jon and Kate for the first time in a hotel room about a year ago, I was totally absorbed. Though not a regular viewing, I've caught a marathon or two and, like millions of Americans, was taken in by the charming spectacle of the Gosselin Quapas, who seemed very sweet and well-behaved. I also delved into the Wikipedia entry and voluminous web commentary on the family, which was particularly preoccupied, long before rumors of marital infidelity, with the decidedly problematic relationship between Jon and Kate.
I was not inclined to see Kate as the villain, not least because Jon comes across as passive and, well, mildly punkish. But Kate … Kate is a character. She's a little difficult. To be sure, raising an army of children is taxing, and my sense is that she bore more of the burden. Under those circumstances, I sense that I'd be a little quick to anger. Much of the anti- commentary focused on the ethics of capitalizing on the children — Jon and Kate have become quite rich by virtue of the television program and speaking fees on the evangelical circuit, fees that I have to assume will dry up in light of marital distress.
But yes, not sure how the dutiful dads of Santa Monica would take to Kate.
One neat thing about the column, which I liked very much, is that it weaves together quite a few separate strands. I hope this column will prompt a robust discussion on Journolist concerning the dark Phalangist plot to overthrow liberal democracy.
My fear, incidentally, is that the Gosselin children will evolve into a miniature militia that will roam America's rural roads in search of plunder.
Another thought, slightly serious: Ross suggests, in a spirit of fun, that Kate find another husband. Yet as Andrew Cherlin argues in his excellent book The Marriage-Go-Round, one wonders if a quick remarriage is wise.
He writes that Americans have come to embrace two contradictory models of personal and family life: marriage, a formal commitment to share one's life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal growth and development. The former promotes a lasting relationship; the latter encourages one to move on.
To some extent, the important thing is relationship stability rather than having, say, a male presence in the household. A quick remarriage might, alas, result in a quick divorce, thus introducing the children to a rotating series of adults who play an ambiguous role. The same applies, by the way, to Jon.
Deep thoughts.
Just a quick note: I don't buy that Andrew Cherlin notion that marriage and individualism are necessarily contradictory. The idea that personal growth and sharing one's life are mutually exclusive takes a pretty narrow view of personal growth. On the contrary, I think we find in a lot of cases that personal growth comes from long commitment to something or someone outside of ourselves, while the "development" gleaned from "following your own path" often turns out to be as transitory as the whim that inspired it.
— Moff · Jun 29, 07:07 PM · #
"The idea that personal growth and sharing one's life are mutually exclusive takes a pretty narrow view of personal growth."
I am of the opinion that putting oneself in a stressful situation in which you are dependent on another person and they are also dependent on you is, in fact, a most excellent environment for fostering personal growth. Paddling class V rivers in a C-2 is one such opportunity. Marriage is another. I suppose war would be yet another (but having just watched the opening of Glory and SPR, I think I will skip war if I can.)
— Tony Comstock · Jun 29, 07:46 PM · #
Ross' best column yet? Perhaps, but only because he produces a constant stream of drivel that would most certainly have failed him out of his freshman high school english class. I couldn't understand what he was getting at today, though it was apparent that he was trying to say that "teh [sic] liberal elite" needs to get more action. But David Brooks already owns the NYT role of rich, white, private-school-educated, conservative guy who pretends he's not and disingenuously slags his East Coast country club neighbors who happen to be Democrats. Ross needs to find another angle. And he needs to write about something other than sex; a player at Harvard, the man was not.
— Mark · Jun 29, 08:17 PM · #
The obvious lesson in all this, and it really can't be said enough, is that social conservatism is a really deeply flawed political perspective. It's a perfectly reasonable personal philosophy (if you want to call it that), but it just doesn't particularly "do" anything in the public sphere except to discourage people from adopting realistic ideas about human behavior. Abstinence education, of course, is the most obvious bit of backwardsness I could point to, but the bigger demographic trends that Ross talk about suggest that that's the tip of an iceberg. It seems that the louder people yell about the family, the worst their families actually do.
Driving through interstates in the South (where I'm from), it's striking how many giant crosses and megachurches sit across the street from porn stores or strip clubs. I've honestly got no problem with either side of the road there, but when you start putting the puzzle together, you get the idea something is very wrong. It's striking how socially conservative people claim to be while having a wildly disproportionate amount of irresponsible pregnancies.
I've got to qualm with marriage and family (I'm married myself), but I really don't get what it accomplishes for people to run around proclaiming their allegiance to those institutions. It seems like its a barrier for the promotion of the kind of REAL personal responsibility that for whatever reasons, political liberals in the U.S. seem a whole lot better at. The core truth is that feminism, where it has been embraced, has made people a lot more thoughtful about their responsibilities within their families.
— Jamie · Jun 29, 08:22 PM · #
feminism, where it has been embraced, has made people a lot more thoughtful about their responsibilities within their families.
Quoted for truth.
— dj · Jun 29, 10:30 PM · #
Ross and Reihan have both covered the question of strip clubs across the street from megachurches pretty extensively, and done so with both sympathy and nuance. Google "Huckabee and turpitude" for a start.
— Matt Frost · Jun 30, 01:37 AM · #
Ross' column was inspired by Sandra Tsing Loh's recent account of her adulterous affair and subsequent divorce. Currently, her position is that men are wimps who selfishly refuse to give their wives the sexual ecstasy they need and deserve.
Okay, fair enough. Except… isn't this the same Sandra Tsing Loh who gave a rave review to Joan Sewell's "I'd Rather Eat Chocolate"?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200703/loh-libido
Sandra LOVED that book, which was all about a wife who hated sex, and the "compromise" solution she found for pleasing her randy young husband (the "solution" involved him looking at a lot of porn). At that time, Sandra was ranting about the selfishness of men who insist on having sex with their wives, when the wives just want to be left alone with a Ghirardelli sampler and a good book. She asked, in exasperation, why it's assumed that women with low libidos have a problem, when the real problem is that men are TOO horny!
Apparently, in Sandra's view, men are the bad guys when they want sex more than their wives do, but they're ALSO the bad guys when they don't want sex as much as their wives do. She thought it was wonderful when Joan Sewell told her husband "Leave me alone, and go wank to porn on the PC," but now thinks it's horrible that her friends' hubbies are looking at porn on the PC instead of putting the moves on their own wives!
I don't know Sandra or her husband, so I have no way of knowing what really went on in their marriage. But it's hard not to feel sorry for her husband, who was apparently wrong, in her eyes, no matter WHAT he did sexually.
— astorian · Jun 30, 02:12 PM · #
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