Harry's Place

I wonder if men are symmetrically unfaithful, by political persuasion.

“Find some decent role models. Urgently.”

Women, you mean? Harry’s Place is the last place I’d look.

Why is that?

Could it be that conservatives understand incentives better? Knowing you will end up divorced is more likely to prevent the affair in the first place. Knowing that you will be forgiven makes it more likely you will be cheat.

Or so the logic goes.

Niel D quotes statistics relating to “cheating and forgiving”, and cherry picks “forgiving”. Now forgiving is an admirable trait, but cheating is far more destructive than the cozy musical beds you see in Friends – people get hurt, and children can get badly screwed up. If you continue to condone such behaviour (as we have, with perverse taxes and benefits), eventually they lead to serial and confused relationships of the sort that have hit the headlines in the Baby P and Shannon Matthews cases. The UK government does (shamefully) not keep statistics on the likelihood of abuse by stepfathers as opposed to genetic fathers, but figures from the US indicate that such abuse is 50 times as likely.

When a lion takes over a pride (usually by fighting its incumbent male), the usual course of action is to kill the cubs. Nature accepts this trait by making the lionesses abort. Stepfathers are prone to the same biological forces, and so societies from time immemorial (until the 1960s, that is) applied stigma to adultery. In such matters Nature is usually a better guide than libertines like Kenneth Tynan and the chattering classes who ridiculed Mary Whitehouse.

You will forgive me for not considering such issues as “light relief”. Slowly and inexorably, the feckless Left is taking our culture down the tubes. Small wonder that immigrants from other cultures reject it wholesale, often in favour of something far worse.

Alcuin = unhinged.

Alcuin just answered the question posed by “That’s rich”.

The survey suggests that Labour supporting women are more liberal in their attitudes towards relationships (which can involve forgiveness, “cheating”, even open relationships etc). This perhaps is unsurprising, since the Conservative Party has long had a stronger “traditional family values” wing which does not have such liberal views, which they associate with the breakdown of society.

Slowly and inexorably, the feckless Left is taking our culture down the tubes.

Ah, a great example. Folk shagging around is a leftwing conspiracy? Does that mean male lefties are just smooth talking horny womanisers really, like Harry Pfarrer in Burn after Reading? I think it does sound very Coen brothers actually.

Much as it pains me to admit it, Baroness Thatcher surely is a perfectly sensible object of admiration. She was at least effective and determined, and she had a clear vision of what sort of country she wanted to create. The left needs a few like her.

Well I would imagine that most people here who know my postings would regard me as right of centre, at the very least.

I was married for several years to a leading Marxist academic and intellectural. We had some very lively discussions and I think we both modified our views over some issues as a result but our basic political views did not change. And the relationship was successful regardless of our politics. The breakup had nothing to do with our politics. I suspect Marx’s view was based on the wife supporting her husband in all areas.

As I despite nearly all politicians, male and female, and their hangers on even more, I am unlikely to find a role model there. There are some admirable women about, but the extreme objectification of women in the UK and the obsession with youth makes it very difficult to find role models.

Although there are role models abroad, like Shirin Ebadi, women are so trivialised in our society, anyone serious minded and worth emulating has a very low public profile. My sister, god bless her, who is a New Labour party member, is a big fan of Hilary Clinton, who would not figure on any list of mine.

I meant of course “despise” in the posting above, where I wrote “despite!” – finger slipped.

naturally we would need to define ‘cheating’ and ‘forgiving’.

this reminds me of a story with one of my aunts about 60 years ago… her husband was cheating her all the time. but one day when she heard that he was on the caffée with another woman while she was at home taking care of the house, that was too much. she went to the caffée, and beat the other woman really bad. she was a simple woman with no formal education, she didn’t even know how to read and she used to think it was ok to stay home because she was of a ‘lower’ social origin than my uncle… but at that moment her social origins came forward and she solved her problem in a not very bourgeoisie way.

after she beat the other one bad, she turned to the husband and said ‘we’ll talk at home’. but as she was leaving the caffée, the other one, still lying on the floor said, ‘nobody helps me…’ so my aunt said, very generously, ‘I’ll help you’, and beat her a bit more with her umbrella.

after that my uncle was never again seen with other women, and my aunt started going out to the caffee with him everyday. she was very generous to forgive him of the humiliation he had subjected her to. other women were too scared to approach my uncle, and he became a very dedicated husband. they lived happy ever after.

this was in a small town, and it became almost a legend. by that time, wives were not a common presence in caffees and cheating was common practice, my aunt became a heroin, secretly and openly praised by other wives.

these were the times when if it was a woman cheating, her husband could kill her ‘to defend his honour’ and walk free… but it’s nonetheless interesting to see that in this post the assumption is that men cheat, while women are portrayed merely as victims of betrayal.

I was married for several years to a leading Marxist academic and intellectural.

My sympathies.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/funny-pictures-kitten-is-excited-that-the-dog-is-back.jpg

I seem to recall that SWP female cadres were afforded opportunities for attachments to senior politburo members, which is very progressive of them.

We in the Cymru Rouge will formulate a policy on hemp-clad lady warriors when we manage to recruit some.

My Marxist ex was apt to comment that while they paid lip service to female equality, so far as most of his fellow Marxists were concerned, the role of their own female partners in actuality was very much that of junior partner and suppliant helpmate.

On the other hand the more strident of his female academic colleagues expected to have special arrangements made for them to work child friendly hours while they off loaded all the anti social hours and evening classes and holiday cover off onto their child free colleagues. They still expected equality of pay and employment terms. It used to make him very cross.

I would have thought it was fairly obvious that no Lib Dems were available for comment because they were all cheating on their husband at the time of the interviews.

Can’t fault Baroness Thatcher or Her Maj as role models, really. But Jordan/Katie Price?

Forgiveness is a left-wing trait?

No this is not a monopoly of collectivist, command economy types.

Alcuin, as so often, is right, and never mind the hysterical reactions of airheads like Paul.

Alcuin, as so often, is right, and never mind the hysterical reactions of airheads like Paul.

Are are a first class cretin

It’s always supremely irritating, when accusing someone of stupidity on the internet, to fuck it up with a typo

But forgiveness is a trait in socially minded individuals, surely, since society cannot function without it. Blood feuds etc.

When you are fucked up, Herman, you are fucked up. Accept it graciously, acknowledge the sad fact that you are an asshole, and move on – to some field in which you can shine, such as shoveling manure.

In my experience people don’t become the sort of feckless scumbags who cheat on their spouses because they are Left Wing.

It’s the other way around.

I do agree that having Jordan as a role model is horrible. It is rather unfortunate that lese majeste isn’t appropriately punished these days. But then neither is advocating crimes against humanity, and either of these would be enough to deal with the Left permanently.

It is truly unfortunate that no real titles are being created for anyone besides the Royal Family. Baroness Thatcher truly should have been elevated to Duchess, and Churchill should have been given his Dukedom after he left politics.