On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:25:00 +0000 (UTC), stef@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Stef)
published this:
>In article <sibc84h64a6a6iq8u2eoudnc5e1r4g6t6b@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>Kai Jones <snippy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
[monogamy: cheating means you don't actually believe in it?]
>>It's really hard for me to believe that you don't have ideals you
>>aspire to but don't meet, because that's what the cheating monogamists
>>are doing, and I do it to, just not on the same subject. I mean, I
>>want to be a better person than I am, and I think being, for example,
>>honest and trustworthy, dependable and timely, generous and kind are
>>all good things; and yet I don't always achieve those things. Does
>>that make me not a person who is striving for them?
>
>I agree that a person can genuinely believe in monogamy and occasionally
>fall off the wagon. To me that would be similar to wanting to be honest
>but sometimes failing to live up to that. But IMO that's fundamentally
>different from claiming to believe in monogamy and then engaging in
>long-term or repeated cheating.
I don't, but I start to disagree at "claiming to believe in monogamy."
I don't think they don't believe in it. They believe in a fantasy
version of it, one that usually includes "if I really loved you, if we
had a perfect love, then I wouldn't be attracted to others/want to
have *** with others/give in to the desires." So it's okay to cheat,
because if it were *really* the right relation****p they wouldn't want
to. But they recognize they're bound by the promises to some extent
even if they didn't get what was promised, like an imperfectly
performed contract.
Then some of them decide that it doesn't apply to them, because
they're so im****tant. They still believe in monogamy, they just think
something justifies thinking of themselves as an
exception--responsibility, high office, achievement of fame or money.
That still qualifies as believing in monogamy as the only acceptable
style of having romantic/***ual/partner****p relation****ps.
>I think people who do that often justify
>their behavior in other ways, or have less discomfort around moral
>inconsistency than I think you do.
Cheating is an exception to the rule of monogamy; polyamory is a
completely different rule, one society as a whole hasn't accepted and
incor****ated as a moral and ethical way of doing relation****ps. I
don't see cheating instead of proclaiming you're going to have
polyamorous relation****ps as moral inconsistency so much as lack of
imagination and courage. It takes some courage to defy society's
rules; the rules have worked for a very long time, in that they've
increased prosperity and security for most people (especially
children) and permitted us to live mostly in peace with each other.
--
Kai Jones snippy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Smartass by nurture as well as nature. Oh yeah, and I'm contrary, too.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill
|
