Classic Canards

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Enroute to work this morning, one of my radio stations entertained a caller as they do every Thursday who solicits input from the listening audience on a conundrum. Today's caller was a woman who wants to date a married man who called asking for feedback but who apparently really sought cheerleaders to endorse a decision already reached. In the City of Sin, she apparently thought that the listeners would tell her to "do what feels right", "just follow her heart", and do whatever is best "for her", since that's what she intended to do. Both she and I were surprised that most people thought she was bound for heartache owing to the logical fallacies she entertained in order to even consider this option. No matter what, she was going to date this guy, it was going to work out for her, and it didn't matter to her what facts contravened her expectations, who else might be hurt or at least inconvenienced by her single-mindedly selfish search for satisfaction. I was glad other people called her out for her nincompoopery and the canards that mislead so many other people. It is inhumane to continue the lie that rations the niceties of logical fallacy, that ignores empirical fact that this kind of behavior is not sustainable in a civilized society.

This woman labors under the mephistophelean argument: Heads I win; tails you lose. No matter what, she was going to be right. She was going to date him anyway, she was just hoping people would call in and support her decision so she could feel better. Instead, she took the opposition to mean that she was doing right on the auspice that opposition mounts most often when you are reaching a desirable and noble end. Well, that's true in MORAL things, but what she's doing isn't moral at all. Most of the respondents were critical, and I was frankly surprised that even the show hosts were critical since it's not exactly a paragonal program. Most people seem to think that she will crash and burn. I hope she does, not because I have any animus towards her, but for another reason altogether. No matter what they say, she was going to press forward, and no matter what happens, she will not be bound by any of their prophetic pronouncements. No matter what she wins. If it fails, she can lay the blame on others for "poisoning the universe against her" with their "negative thoughts", and if it works out, she can take credit for being smarter than all the nay-sayers. No matter what, it's a good idea and you are just hating on her or wish to deny her her happiness if you don't license and lend support to her cause. No matter what, it's not her fault and all the glory is hers. This argument based on emotion, on selfish search for satisfaction ignores the things you don't control and blames any outside influence for interference. It's the canard that accompanies every failed effort that amounts to nothing more than an ideological pursuit for utopia.

It boggles my mind how many people feel that no matter who is hurt in the process that the ends always justify the means. She labors under the delusion that she can build a sure relationship on the ashes of a former failed one. Men are told that a woman who will cheat on their other relationship with us will also cheat on us for someone else. I am sure that also applies to women, but this woman insists that he's not cheating and will never cheat. She knows what she wants, and she will doggedly pursue it no matter what. I cannot comprehend why so many people will bend heaven and earth to pursue and then maintain relationships with people who are aberrant and abhorrent morally and who will bend over backwards avoiding a relationship with me. The male caller they took on the show was dating three women at once while married, and everyone knew except his wife. So, he's out there schtuping three different women, and this woman caller wants to be the affair with another guy, but meanwhile I cannot get a date to save my life. However, something tells me that I wouldn't want any of these women anyway because the means they propose do not lead to the ends I seek. I have previously opined the maladjusted notion that delicious food can come from spoiled ingredients, but these people are all inherently selfish. It's all about what they want to be true, the actual facts and truth and opinions of others be damned. Unfortunately, this isn't the attitude of a spouse and partner; this is the attitude of a teenage girl, and no man of substance wants to date a teenage girl because teenage girls are never happy. In fact, it is not true that there are no good people to date, it's that so many people are competing for the attention of those already taken. A misbegotten notion exists that if someone is taken, they are desirable and we by extension ought desire them too. It makes as much sense as fighting over a single piece of cake when the rest of the cake remains available. You cannot build on earth, which is fallen, using the sophistry of man a utopia that heaven and its laws alone can sustain.

Most people are not the exception, they are the rule, or else the exception would be the rule. If dating married people always worked, nobody would date single people, because statistically single people are undesirable as aforementioned. Of course, then why would a married man want this unmarried woman, but that's overthinking it, isn't it? Most people discouraged it because natural law dictates that her efforts will likely end in failure, heartache, and disappointment, and then she will excoriate all men as pigs when the fault lies with her for following a false premise and promise. He's already broken promises to his betrothed; what makes her different? She's special, and things ought to work out for her because she's her. You don't really know all the faults of a person until you live with them, and in that tender point of their courtship, she probably sees him with rose-colored glasses as someone who can do no wrong, who is misunderstood or underappreciated by his wife, and that this woman can and will by extension do better. What hubris! What narcissism! Her opinions are unhinged from moral roots, from reality itself, caught up in the delusion that fairy tales are still real at least for her. What is she, six? If it works, she will doubtless not consider herself fortunate, lucky, or the exception but will consider herself exceptional, omniscient, and omnipotent. She will take this as a sign that she is always right about everything. This naivete is common to and defining of young people, and although I don't really know her age, by now she should know better than to think that people fart rainbows and vomit skittles. I cannot believe how fully she capitulated to contrarian canards of logic that she will be special, that he really loves her, that it will be different with her than with the current wife. Why do we delude ourselves? Why do we ignore all pretense at logic when in love and see only what we wish to see? This adolescent attitude and argument was met with appropriate scorn and disfavor from the listening audience. One woman went so far as to excoriate the woman as the worst person she's ever met (notwithstanding they have never met), which I felt was a bridge too far, but I digress. Before the hosts returned the program to music, even they predicted and prophesied misery and woe for this woman. I would love to see how her story plays out, but we only hear about the ones that do. Dating sites parade on the successful without telling you how many are failures. Mark Zuckerberg is heralded as a financial wizard when he's really a reprobate college drop out who built a financial empire on coitus, since that's what his social network was originally designed to do. These people are not the rule or EVERYONE would be rich, famous, or happy.

I know this may seem odd coming from a man who is himself divorced, but my marriage did not fail because I quit it. It failed because my wife quit the marriage and refused to entertain any effort on my part to repair the breaches, real or imagined, that led to her feelings of slight. With my cynicism came wisdom, that I am not the exception, that it is not all about me, and that only right things done for right reasons bring outcomes that I actually desire to keep. Rather than blame her or seek to rationalize or excuse myself, I took ownership of my faults and asked others for wisdom, and eventually I listened. At no point did I ever seek a relationship outside the confines of matrimony while married. In fact, that's how I got closure from most of my relationships; as soon as they married or moved in with someone else, it no longer mattered. Any romantic feelings I might entertain needed to die, and I let them, because to entertain them put their marriage at risk, even if that marriage was one of Common Law. I will not be the scapegoat for any failed marriage. I will not deserve the scorn that comes to a homewrecker. My late friend Tracie sought my affections while married, and she was totally taken aback when I declined.  After her divorce when she no longer seemed interested, I knew I had made the right move.  I truly hope that woman are not all this stupid, or else no wonder I can't find one I desire to keep, and it's no wonder that none of them are interested in doing what it takes to keep me. In their minds everything does and of a right ought to revolve around them. We all know that's not a persuasive argument even if it is a pervasive one. People like this are the problem- in religion, in relationships, in commerce, in philosophy, and especially in politics because, more often than not, if you think that you cannot possibly be wrong, you are, because pride comes before destruction.