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What So Many Liberals Don’t Understand About Adultery
On ABC, Paul Krugman effectively summed up what many liberals are saying about Sanford-gate:
If a liberal sees somebody who talks about moral values and does something like this, and they call it hypocrisy. A conservative looks at it and says, well, but at least he stands up for moral values.
As Krugman’s tone of voice made very clear, his comment about conservatives was meant to be derisive. Back when I was in college, I felt the same way. We all know politicians will sleep around. So in the end, talking about family values will achieve nothing except raising the hypocrisy quotient. Democrats seem to understand that.
But there’s something deeply flawed about that kind of thinking. Culture matters in politics. Millions of voters want to elect leaders who set a certain standard for individual behavior. When individuals like Mark Sanford fail to live up to that standard, you shouldn’t vote for them a second time. But there will be new candidates who live the values, and they will get elected. Although it’s inevitable that some leaders will be exposed as hypocrites, that is no reason for other leaders to give up on the cause of promoting ethical behavior.
For many liberals (and libertarians), the idea that we should care about what a politician does in the bedroom is deeply problematic. Putting personal behavior — and especially sex — at the center of politics — promotes intolerance and creates massive diversions, such as the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Why not be more like the Europeans, who understand that powerful men are simply going to have mistresses? Let’s just get on with making better policy.
That position isn’t intrinsically wrong, but it avoids addressing the role that culture does play in creating the social conditions that necessitate better policy. Poverty, public health and many related issues are affected by our collective standards for sexual behavior. Not unreasonably, a lot of voters want politicians to set an example that leads us in the right direction. Can you measure how much a good example contributes to addressing social issues? I doubt it. By the same token, it is both premature and self-destructive for Krugman and liberals who think like him to dismiss the family values agenda as nothing more than the hand-maiden of hypocrisy.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
16 Responses to “What So Many Liberals Don’t Understand About Adultery”
And you don't see many Democrats acknowledge the hypocrisy of the Left' leaders on taxes, the environment and corruption, while jetting around on private planes, living in mansions, cheating on their taxes, and refusing to investigate the massive influence peddling and graft in Congress.
I wish we could get past the “Your side is a bigger hypocrite than mine” arguments, realize that both parties are hypocritical much of the time, and just focus on issues. When ever voters are asked what's most important to them the answer is always issues, but in reality it often doesn't turn out that way.
On Sanford I think what he did to South Carolinians was unprofessional and that he should resign. I really couldn't care less about his adultery.
I'm all for focusing on the issues, but I think there's a real argument to be made that personal morality is an issue.
I can sympathize with the view that personal morality is a legitimate issue, but that's not the point here. The point is that I don't want personal morals dictated to me by people who don't have any themselves. And since human beings by nature do tend to not practice what they preach, why not just agree that marital fidelity is a personal issue and not appropriate for public lawmaking?
adesnik I agree with your point that individuals will find adultery an issue and vote accordingly, and rightly so. Where I think the GOP sets itself up for failure is trying to promote itself as the values party. While striving for fidelity is fine in reality they are unable to meet their own standards, essentially putting a “kick me” sign on their backs.
I guess what I'm saying is fidelity works as an individual issue, even as an issues for interest groups like churches, but as a plank in the party platform will not work.
Goat – would you rather have elected officials that cheated on their wives, or that are robbing the Treasury blind?
I know my answer, even though I have said Sanford should resign (all still think he should, and likely face criminal charges for his trips to Argentina on the taxpayers dime).
AR obviously I'll take the ones cheating on their wives. They may as well be screwing some bimbo as opposed to screwing all of us.
I see the point I think Adesnik is trying to make, namely that personal morality will reflect public morality, but in practice they can't make it work.
Kathy, you ask a reasonable question. As I suggested in my post, Europeans seem to accept a system where adultery is not an issue. But I wonder if lines are hard to draw. For example, it's clearly unacceptable for politicians to go missing for several days while committing adultery. Yet Sanford went missing because adultery necessitates lies (at least until we get to the point where wives accept it as well). Will it be so easy to separate the necessary lies from the excessive ones?
Where I disagree, is the point that humans, by nature, do not practice what they preach. There will be hypocrites, and there will probably be even more who do practice what they preach. Your objection to hearing sermons from hypocrites suggests you are amenable to sermons from the righteous. As I suggested in my post, the hypocrites tend to wash out of politics, or at least stop preaching about personal virtue. That terrain is then left to those who do set a positive example.
In short, I don't think the existence of hypocrisy is a reason to take personal morality out of politics. There is hypocrisy on absolutely every issue. We simply have to tackle head on the harder question of whether we want personal morality to be part of our politics.
“Goat – would you rather have elected officials that cheated on their wives, or that are robbing the Treasury blind?”
How about neither…
Dorian – but of course!
I think you are completely missing the point. The point is that a significant number of the Republican fallen were out there preaching “family values” and setting themselves up as the pinnacle of virtue while they were already trashing several commandments on a daily basis.
We are not upset at them because they fooled around. We are upset because they fooled around while falsely and cynically building the Republican brand as the godly party in order to dupe that segment of the population that shouts AMEN when ever somebody yells “Jesus” from the soapbox.
Republican office holders and seekers are by definition ungodly. I don't know how much you know about politics but to even get on the ticket for anything but the most insignificant local office you have to make several deals with the “devil.” If those “values” voters had even a inkling of what their moral champions had to do in order to get elected they not only wouldn't vote for them, they would escort them to the city limits with torches and pitchforks. If they could somehow see what was actually in their hearts they would blanch. I worked as a nonpartisan in the legislative arena for years. I worked with ultra conservative legislators on a daily basis. If their constituents knew what these folks really though of them . . .
You say. “Millions of voters want to elect leaders who set a certain standard for individual behavior.” That is the problem in a nutshell. Because of this anyone who wants to run for office has to lie their ass off to even get past the primaries because no one living can hope to pass this litmus test. People need to vote the issues, not some preposterous moral code.
The worst part is that Republicans often get to have it both ways. They lie their asses off, then when they get caught all they have to do is falsely beg Jesus for forgiveness on national television, maybe cry a little, then go back to doing exactly what they were doing before, AND go run for reelection. The “values” voters will only see they he “got himself right with Jesus” and pull the lever for the adulterous, venal, lying, covetous, bastard again.
degrance – go read my first post on the thread. THAT is the real point. Both sides are hypocrites, but there seems to be much more of a tendency on the Left to look the other way, not demand accountability for the hypocrisy, and to reelect theirs.
Not too many Republicans survive these types of scandals (although a few do), and I would bet good money Sanford will not be Governor by the end of August.
I'm sorry, but I take the French point of view regarding adultery. Therefore all of this is just a moot point.
“Both sides are hypocrites, but there seems to be much more of a tendency on the Left to look the other way, not demand accountability for the hypocrisy, and to reelect theirs.”
More than merely “seems.” However, all is not lost with the Left; the GOP is not using that hated word from the 1990s, “virtue,” (“the party of virtue”) and has not been doing this since, oh, Gingrich and Hyde were exposed. (And Bill Bennett, the Bookie of Virtues.)
AustinRoth, you continue to miss the point. The Democrats have the support of their constituency because, by and large, we agree with their policies.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have the support of the “values voters” because the Republicans are systematically giving the false impression that they share the “values” of this group. They do not. They never have. They never will. They milk the religious right for votes and then ignore them for four years except to throw them a bone in a speech or to pass an unconstitutional law that they know will never be enforced and eventually overruled in the courts.
Fortunately the religious groups are beginning to see the light, as it were.
http://watchmanswords.blogspot.com/2005/10/reli…
“The reality is that Bush 43 is no different in practice than Reagan or Bush 41. They talk the talk. They go to church (well not so much Reagan, but you get my point). They pray out loud. But they don't take the concrete actions that would change the things that matter most to people of faith. They do not care about moral values nearly as much as they care about motivating voters. So they say what we want to hear and count on us to keep living in blissful ignorance of the fact that nothing ever happens. It's time for that to change.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/washington/15…
“In the last several weeks, Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most influential Christian conservatives, has publicly accused Republican leaders of betraying the social conservatives who helped elect them in 2004. He has also warned in private meetings with about a dozen of the top Republicans in Washington that he may turn critic this fall unless the party delivers on conservative goals.”
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/200…
“Some religious conservative leaders feel shirked by the GOP right now. They argue that religious conservatives are the most loyal Republican voters and that the party should take their issues more seriously.”
Degrace — take note of what you presented to Austin Roth.
It does _not_ constitute a refutation of any thought or claim that the GOP is more virtuous than the Democrats; rather that (in addition to being subjected to loathsome attacks by the scummier elements of the Left as a routine matter) the Religious Right is neglected or at times exploited, and given often token treatment at best, an occasional sop or bending to them (or to conservatives in general, but that is in fact another issue) at least enough to encourage them to vote in the next election (for GOP candidates). It is as Huckabee correctly described, an experience of being allowed by GOP leadership “onto the bus,” but forced to sit in the back of the bus (not really given respect, much a chance for much policy insight, let alone party leadership).
And in that correct light, take note that what the Religious Right has long experienced is exactly what gay or GBLT activist critics of Obama are saying about Obama (and if they were to take the time to think about it and say it, about other Dems in Washington) and his slighting of gays relative to what he had promised them in the campaign (which goes beyond the more general problem of Obama's campaign promises and that so many would so willingly believe them). This is why I asked gays on another thread, about this “Obama slight” or “Obama betrayal,” rhetorically how _they_ feel being the Dems' equivalent of the Religious Right for the GOP and how _they_ like being in the back of the bus at the moment.
Food for thought (for those who think)…