What does "moral degeneracy" mean to you?
I am paraphrasing this from ancient memory, but a former roommate, Dan Cohen, once said something along these lines to me (the two of us were out drinking in a campus town bar):
In my defense, I was only pretending to ignore Dan in order to tease him. What he said was interesting enough to me at the time that I can still kind of recall it -- especially his asking (probably half in jest) if people who didn't understand "degeneracy" were degenerates. Not an especially profound question, but perhaps an interesting one (especially perhaps when you're drunk).
A hundred years ago, there lived a minor American poet who once wrote (as part of a longer poem) about his grandmother, a pioneer woman:
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you —
It takes life to love Life.
Nowadays, I think that sums up my understanding of "moral degeneracy" better than most things. To me, real moral degeneracy isn't any particular set of "bad" or "evil" sexual practices, but rather an inability or even a refusal to embrace and affirm life despite all its hardships. To run from life, to deny it -- that's degenerate, so far as I'm concerned.
You see, whether or not -- or perhaps in what circumstances and ways -- to affirm (or deny) life just might be the supreme moral question. It might be argued that all other key moral issues in one way or another depend on how one answers that single question.
But what do you think about the key question poised by all of this: Would it be proper to characterize @SalixIncendium's fashion sense as "degenerate"?
Comments? Observations? Depraved Rants? Invitations to Bond by Peeing together in a Dumpster*
______________________________
FOOTNOTE AND HAPPY BONUS QUESTION: *Unbelievable as it might sound, I once had a friend -- a young woman named Marah who was just as brilliant as she was gorgeous -- who for reasons known only to her believed (or at least believed whenever she'd been drinking) that it was an act of friendship, solidarity, and bonding to pee together with someone into a dumpster (i.e. an industrial trash bin). She once invited a pleasant young man whose name I've forgotten: His response? "That's so sick, Marah, so sick and degenerate! Let's do it!" Now, in your opinion, could you refuse to "embrace and affirm" peeing in a dumpster with Marah without being morally degenerate? Put differently, if the imperative to "embrace and affirm life" does NOT require you to indiscriminately embrace and affirm everything in life, then on what grounds or basis can you distinguish between what to affirm and what not to affirm without being "morally degenerate"?
I am paraphrasing this from ancient memory, but a former roommate, Dan Cohen, once said something along these lines to me (the two of us were out drinking in a campus town bar):
DAN: Have you noticed, Phil, that some people speak about "moral degeneracy" only in sexual terms, as if "morals" were automatically about sex and sex alone?
ME: If you see our waitress, flag her for me. I want another scotch.
DAN: I wonder what shallow puddles of pee their thoughts must be if their thoughts run no deeper than that?
ME: Did you say something about sex?
DAN: Do you think people like them could be degenerate for not understanding degeneracy any better than they do?
ME: I swear you said something about sex, Dan.
ME: If you see our waitress, flag her for me. I want another scotch.
DAN: I wonder what shallow puddles of pee their thoughts must be if their thoughts run no deeper than that?
ME: Did you say something about sex?
DAN: Do you think people like them could be degenerate for not understanding degeneracy any better than they do?
ME: I swear you said something about sex, Dan.
In my defense, I was only pretending to ignore Dan in order to tease him. What he said was interesting enough to me at the time that I can still kind of recall it -- especially his asking (probably half in jest) if people who didn't understand "degeneracy" were degenerates. Not an especially profound question, but perhaps an interesting one (especially perhaps when you're drunk).
A hundred years ago, there lived a minor American poet who once wrote (as part of a longer poem) about his grandmother, a pioneer woman:
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you —
It takes life to love Life.
Nowadays, I think that sums up my understanding of "moral degeneracy" better than most things. To me, real moral degeneracy isn't any particular set of "bad" or "evil" sexual practices, but rather an inability or even a refusal to embrace and affirm life despite all its hardships. To run from life, to deny it -- that's degenerate, so far as I'm concerned.
You see, whether or not -- or perhaps in what circumstances and ways -- to affirm (or deny) life just might be the supreme moral question. It might be argued that all other key moral issues in one way or another depend on how one answers that single question.
But what do you think about the key question poised by all of this: Would it be proper to characterize @SalixIncendium's fashion sense as "degenerate"?
Comments? Observations? Depraved Rants? Invitations to Bond by Peeing together in a Dumpster*
______________________________
FOOTNOTE AND HAPPY BONUS QUESTION: *Unbelievable as it might sound, I once had a friend -- a young woman named Marah who was just as brilliant as she was gorgeous -- who for reasons known only to her believed (or at least believed whenever she'd been drinking) that it was an act of friendship, solidarity, and bonding to pee together with someone into a dumpster (i.e. an industrial trash bin). She once invited a pleasant young man whose name I've forgotten: His response? "That's so sick, Marah, so sick and degenerate! Let's do it!" Now, in your opinion, could you refuse to "embrace and affirm" peeing in a dumpster with Marah without being morally degenerate? Put differently, if the imperative to "embrace and affirm life" does NOT require you to indiscriminately embrace and affirm everything in life, then on what grounds or basis can you distinguish between what to affirm and what not to affirm without being "morally degenerate"?
