need not tell you that we are living in an increasingly self-centered society.  You would have to be dead not to have figured that out.  Why, we barely pay lip service these days to the virtues of selfless behavior.  Human beings have never been perfect.  But there have been moral high ideals.  And that is not a trivial reality.  The difference between high moral ideals and no moral ideals is the difference between moral shame and no shame at all.  It is the difference between there being aspirations for moral excellence and the complete absence of such aspirations.

We see the corrupt character of society in the tendency on the part of everyone to blame anyone other themselves for anything that goes wrong.  Being a victim has become a work of art.  It is not about what is true; it is about what one can do to get someone to cough up money one’s behalf.  One need not have been wronged.  It suffices that one can manipulate others to offer one “compensation” for damages, anyhow. 

On a recent program, someone maintained that McDonald’s, for instance, should be required to post signs in its restaurants saying that its food is unhealthy, because it is conducive to gaining weight.  If we cannot hold people accountable for what they voluntarily put in their mouths for food consumption, then what can we hold people accountable for?  Nothing at all. 

On one of the cans of deodorant that I have, there is the warning that the contents of the can are “For external use only”.  Well, I don’t know when I ever so much as had the fantasy to use deodorant internally, let alone to have actually entertained the thought of doing so.  I can’t even get a grip on how deodorant could be for anything other than external use.  But this is a law suit moment. 

Finally, in this regard, displays of emotion mean absolutely nothing these days.  That has become a kind of performance art.  I abuse a product—say I use a can of deodorant to prop up the hood of my car up.  But when the can bursts and a piece of metal flies into my eye, I go into a fit of hysteria in the name of the product have been defective. 

It is against this backdrop that we might look at the phenomenon of playing the race card.  I can think of lots and lots of cases of genuine racism.  I can also think of lots and lots of cases when what is called an instance of racism is not that at all.  Rather, the charge of racism is used as a cover for wrongdoing itself. 

Using the charge of racism as a cover for wrongdoing is but another way of getting ahead in a society that valorizes self-interest over moral values.  It is a way of diffusing blame or avoiding either responsibility or punishment entirely. 

A black man attempts to rob a white woman.  However, she is black belt in martial arts and whips his ass.  When the police arrive, the black man goes into a fit of hysteria over having been a victim of racism.  Of course, the charge makes no sense at all.  But that truth is utterly irrelevant. 

But what is difference between that and parents defending their child in school when the child’s behavior is obviously inappropriate?  Well, not much in the end. 

True, talk about racism raises the social decibels quite a bit.  In the end, though, what we have is the very same phenomenon: people attempting to excuse wrongdoing by any means available.  Rich parents using the threat of a lawsuit to protect their child from punishment for the wrong he committed are no different, at the most basic fundamental level, from blacks using the charge of racism to avoid punishment for a wrong that they have committed. 

There is this difference, though.  Owing to the way in which opportunity presents itself, blacks are more likely to commit crimes against other blacks than whites.  Thus, the irony is that using the charge of racism to avoid punishment has a most deleterious impact upon the black community.  This, I think, is one of the sights at the very heart of Juan William’s new book Enough. The difference, though, is that the point applies with equal force to poor white communities. 

Whites from down-trodden poor white communities are not harming poor blacks or rich whites.  Such whites are harming the members of their own community.  Of course, these white cannot play the race card.  But they manage to excuse their atrocious immoral behavior all the same.  If the game is about excusing atrocious immoral behavior, it is irrelevant whether the means by which one does that is money, the race card, or anything else.

This is a de Tocqueville moment, as the absence of foresight on the part of lawyers, judges, and juries is having an utterly devastating upon the moral climate of America. 

There are lots and lots of individual “gains” in the sense that a person either receives some form of “compensation” or avoids being held responsible for his wrongful behavior.  But as a result of the individual “gains” of this sort a dark cloud of moral decay is casting itself over society.  Increasingly, people see no reason to act morally precisely because ostensibly acting moral does not so much as even gain them respect. 

For we now look up to those who can beat the system.  They have become our symbols of sophistication and shrewdness.  They are the ones to emulate.  By contrast, those who do what is right regardless are dismissed as suffering from some form of intellectual constipation. 

Here is a simple truth.  We cannot admire evil and expect righteousness to prevail.  Short term gain here is none other than a recipe for a moral climate that ravishes the soul of everyone. 

Whether white or black, though, the communities of the worse off in the end suffer the most.  In his book Enough, Williams grasped the truth of this point with regard to blacks.  I have had the temerity, as is my want, to extend the point to the worse-off generally.   

uppose that every time you called me in the hopes that I would come over and help you with something or the other, I sent someone else over to do so.  A very competent someone else, to be sure, but someone else nonetheless.  That might work if, for instance, I made it clear that I had not a clue as how to address your problem satisfactorily.  But not even this truth works all the time.  After all, there is an awful lot to be said for working through something together.  It is not at all trivial to say to a friend “Well, I don’t quite know what to do.  But we will figure out a solution together”.

Now, guess what?  If I sent a friend over every time you called me in the hopes that I would come over and help you, your gratitude generally would be towards the person I sent over rather than towards me.  Why?  Well, two reasons come quickly to mind.  One is that the work has been done by this other person and not I.  The other is that the pattern itself would suggest that I am not all that interested in being there to help you.  It is one thing for me to come over with someone to help you; it is quite another for me to send someone else over and then to get on with what I am doing. 

If I send someone over and then get on with what I am doing, then what we do not have is the experience of our working together on your problem.  There are no expressions of concern and thoughtfulness that are called forth by our working together to resolve the matter. 

Now, let us be clear.  If you call me and ask me to recommend someone who can help you, then my sending someone over is just fine.  And you will be grateful for for my doing just that.  But if you called and asked me to come over, then my sending someone else over is not likely to sit well with you.  For if you merely wanted me to recommend someone, then you would certainly have asked me that.  But you wanted me to help you and not someone else.  Now, I could point out that I think that it would better if someone else came over in my stead.  And that move may very well work if we are talking about something that requires very special skills that I clearly do not have and that we are not going to acquire by working together. 

The fundamental point, obviously, is that it is absolutely appropriate that the bulk of our gratitude should go towards the person who does the work in question for us.  If you are drowning and I get someone to save you, it stands to reasoin that you will be grateful for my action.  But surely you will be all the more grateful to the person who actually jumped into the water and saved your life.  And it would be downright foolish of me to think that I am on the same plane as the one who did all that, simply because I went and got that person. 

Gratitude is not a transferable property.  If you saved my life, my gratitude towards you does not extend to your parents or your friends.  Now, to be sure, I may express my gratitude towards you by doing things for your parents.  You may not need anything as such.  And it may mean ever so much to you that I am doing this wonderful thing for your parents.  Because you are the one who saved my life, you are the object of my gratitude; whereas your parents are the beneficiaries of my gratitude towards you.  Why, I need not ever have met your parents and doing so need not ever be in the offing.  But I may regularly send them chocolates from Belgium as a way of expressing my gratitude to you for saving my life.  No one thinks for a moment that your parents are owed any gratitude here: not you, not your parents, and not I. 

So what on earth does all of this have to do with parenting?  An awful lot. 

These days, parents are sending their children off to daycare centers within 6 weeks after the birth of the child.  Let us do the “math”: There are 24 hours in a day.  A child sleeps about 10 of them.  So that leaves us with 14 hours.  If the child goes to daycare for 8 hours per day, then that leaves us with 6 hours for genuine parent-child interaction.  Take away another hour for the commute to and from the daycare center, then we are left with 5 hours.  Allow for a little decompression time and household concerns, then we are down to 4 hours of genuine parent-child interaction, from Monday through Friday.  People often make the move that quality is more important than quantity.  And there is something to be said for that.  Yet, sometimes the quality is in the quantity.  Some of the most remarkable moments of friendship that have experienced in life have involved nothing more than spending time together.

To begin with, then, can it be good thing that a child, between the ages of 1 and 5 has twice as much adult-child interaction, on a daily basis, with someone other than his parents or relatives?  If it can be, then the irony is that the way in which it turns out to be a good thing is precisely what makes it a bad thing.  Or so I shall argue in what follows

Without a doubt, a great many of the most important and interesting learning experiences of a child’s formative years, as the child’s sense of self is forming, take place during those 40 hours (8 hours a day, 5 days a week).  And for that, the child’s sense of gratitude and appreciation goes—not to the parents—but to the folks at the daycare center.  If the daycare provider taught the child to count and read his first words, then in the child’s mind it is the provider who gets the credit for these things, however much it may be true that the child shows these things off to his parents.  Again, if the daycare provider helped the child to understand the difference between female and male, then once more it is the provider who gets credit for this lesson and not the parent. 

Now, it one holds, as I do, that gratitude is like charity in that both should begin at home, then we have problem, namely that daycare sets up a deep incongruity.

On the one hand, parents naturally want to see themselves as forging marvelous moments of gratitude on the part of their children with regard to the small but yet ever so significant things.  On the other, the reality of sending children to daycare is that parents relinquish in large measure the opportunity to play just that role in the lives of their children. 

This, obviously, brings us back to the beginning of this blog-entry.  Feelings of gratitude are very specific to a person and his behavior.  Feelings of gratitude are naturally occasioned by the good that we take that person to have done on our behalf. 

It is no accident, then, that the parent child relationship is not quite what it used to be.  For precisely what used to be the case, at least more so than not, is that the first fundamental blocks of gratitude were laid in the home by parents and family members rather than in a center run by strangers who were working for money. 

What used to be the case, at least more so than not, is that the first fundamental blocks of gratitude were laid daily by those who loved and were eternally committed to the well-being of the children—and not by persons whose primary concern was a bigger paycheck or the next promotion. 

How could this not make a difference in how children feel about their families?  Some of the most important sentiments of life are occasioned not by this or that eloquent utterance, but by the study drops of goodness that have left one crevice after another upon our souls.  But either we are the author of those study drops of goodness in the lives of our children or we are not.  And if we are not, then the truth is that we will never really be able to take credit for it all.  This is because notwithstanding all the fancy language that may be employed, there will not be the corresponding feelings of gratitude. 

At the most formative stage of a child’s life when the very idea of an external world can barely obtain a purchase upon the child’s thought, the parents and family should be the primary mover in the sentiments of gratitude that are occasioned in the child’s life.  Daycare is utterly incompatible with that reality.  We adults have told ourselves otherwise.  But stories spun have never been a match for sentiments forged in the crucible of experience. 

More than we would like to imagine, the family is like a bank account: What we get out of it is inextricably and ineliminably a function of what we put in it.  Less yields less.  More yields more.  No amount of theorizing will make it otherwise.   To think otherwise is none other than human folly itself.

f singing is a gift from God, then Bianca Ryan has surely been directly anointed by God himself.  I cannot recall ever hearing a voice so powerful.  I cannot recall ever hearing an 11-year old with such voice control, to say nothing of having a tidal-wave like range.  Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I most certainly would not have believed it.

There was Judy Garland’s classic rendition of “Over the Rainbow”.  And to this day, it is next to impossible for me to listen to that song without a tear or two finding its way to the corner of my eyes.  Singing at its absolute best is none other than the ability to bring forth emotions on the part of the listener—often in spite of himself.  We all have feelings that we manage to control.  Singing at its very best undoes the complete self-control that we are normally able to exercise. 

Sometimes, we are moved owing to the sheer purity of sound that is produced.  One can’t quite believe that a human voice is actually producing that quality marvelous sound.  Sometimes we are moved owing to the range that is reached.  In this case, the singer is singing most mellifluously at one pitch, and then goes to another pitch that is so high or so low that did not think it was possible for a human being to maneuver from the one pitch to the other in a flawless manner. 

Then there is the issue of staying on key.  To reach a note is one thing.  To stay there flawlessly is another thing entirely.  In this regard, many try but few are successful.

Bianca Ryan achieves all of the above as flawlessly as anyone could hope to do—certainly for an 11 years old, as the judge who was most critical at the outset rightly noted.   

With so many singers nowadays, the instruments being played while they are singing make all the difference.  The instruments stop; and one stops listening and wonders whatever made anyone think that this person could sing.

With Bianca Ryan, it is just the opposite.  Indeed, as I recall her singing in my head, it is only at the very end of the song that I really hear the instruments: the final drum-roll.  Up until then, the only thing that is really salient is a most powerful voice. 

I am not even sure if I like the song she sang: Jennifer Holiday’s “I am Telling You that I am not Going”. 

But that is one of marks of a truly gifted singer: She or he can take a song for which there are many, many renditions and that you have heard sung a multitude of times with utter indifference, and sing that song so incredibly that it is as if you are hearing a brand new song.  The person can take a song that you would never have listened to and sing it with such power and majesty that you have to force yourself to stop listening to her or his rendition of that song.

This point about overcoming familiarity is quite important.  There is nothing on this earth like taking the utterly familiar and so transforming it that we see or hear it as something fresh.  In Bianca Ryan’s case, it goes without saying that her age is a relevant factor.  That, however, does not change the reality that she transformed the song.  It turns out often enough that our power to transform something depends upon who we are.  This is because delivery typically plays a significant role in determining what feelings get invoked by what we say or sing.  Had Whitney Houston sang the same song exactly as Bianca Ryan did, we would have been so very much less impressed. 

Speaking of Whitney Houston: If there is a prayer to pray here it is that Bianca Ryan will be able to withstand the pressures of corruption.  It was not so long ago that Whitney Houston’s voice was considered an American treasure.  Today, she is has fallen so low that to mention her name is in many quarters to invite laughter or pity—no doubt a mixture of both, in some instances. 

Now doubt this was the point of the critical remarks of one of the judges.  In effect, he was telling her to be a brilliant singer and not to present herself as a “slut”—or more simply: a sex object.  And he is unquestionably right in this regard.  Insofar as we were moved by her singing, it is most certainly the case that how she was dressed added nothing whatsoever to the favorable assessment we made of her ability to sing, assuming that we made a favorable assessment. Her attire was unbecoming for her age.  It was more appropriate for a female teenager who at least 16 years of age.  Likewise for her hairstyle.

Perhaps the judge could have made his remarks in a less abrasive manner.  But perhaps what he did was just right, precisely because she will not forget them.  Had he been less abrasive, then in light of the praise he went on to bestow upon her, she might very well have forgotten the initial instructive criticism.  This way, if all goes well, she has from the judge both an unqualified positive assessment of her singing talent along with a morally instructive comment.  I am so grateful for that. 

Talent does not replace morality and decency.  That this truth shall be a reality for Bianca Ryan is my hope for her.  If she dresses like a slut now, then there is already a formidable strike against her.   If, by contrast, she does not become habituated to dressing like a slut now, then there is hope that she shall not do so in the future.  And it is that hope that the judge, in his initial critical remarks, hoped to keep alive.  Or so I would like to believe.

othing in heaven or on the face of this earth can take the place of parental love.  Not even God.  There can be no substitute for the myriad of ways in which parents uniquely value their children, through touch and words and deeds.  The simplest touch from a mother can be a veritable river of affirmation.  Her smile of satisfaction and pride can be so many rays of sunshine penetrating the dark clouds of reality.  And although she has uttered the words “I love you” countless times in the past, her doing so again can be more moving and majestic than the flawless playing of the greatest symphony.  Nothing can take the place of a mother’s love.  Not even God.

It is this moral gift that all parents can give to their child.  It is a moral gift that does not require wealth or education. And, of course, this moral gift is one that parents of every ethnicity or race equally have, although it is manifestly obvious that not all individuals possess this moral gift equally.  Some people are constitutionally such that they make bad parents, but no ethnic or racial group is so constituted.

As with any form of goodness, a person cannot do or say anything he pleases and, at same time, succeed in exercising or displaying that goodness.  I cannot, for example, routinely leave my child with others most of the day and expect my child to experience me as if I were interacting with him and admiring him and teaching him throughout the day.  That is simply not possible.  Nor again can I routinely say harsh things to my child or brutally criticize him for every mistake that he makes and expect my child to think that my love for him is independent of all these foibles. 

Parental love is not defined by a biological relationship, to wit: this infant has half of my genetic make-up.  Rather, it is defined by the ways in which the parents behave towards their child.  Their deeds, their words, and their facial expressions are all part of the behavior that counts.  Indeed, these things are additive, in that one cannot excel at one and complete fail at the other.  But when these things are done well, a child’s sense of being uniquely valued, and thus valued without regard to accomplishments, is without equal.

With these considerations in mind, one has to ask what must it be like to be raised in a community that so praises “martyrdom” that parents are more than content to see their child die for a cause? 

In other words: Is Islamic fanaticism compatible with parental love as I have described it?  It is a conceptual consequence of pushing “martyrdom” too hard as a moral virtue that people are better off dead than alive.  Indeed, it is a consequence of doing so that children are better off alive than dead. 

Offhand, then, it would seem that fanatical Islam is entirely incompatible with parental love as I have described it, precisely because the very ideology of Islamic fanaticism has it that the child has more value dead than alive.  And there is no way to bestow upon a child a sense of being uniquely valued as one’s child, all the while holding that the child would have more value dead than alive. 

It is one thing for an adult to choose freely to give his life for a righteous cause, where there is no expectation on anyone’s part that this is what the person must do.  It is quite another for the very culture in which a child is raised to be such that the valuing of a child is tied to the child’s willingness to be a “martyr”.  For this is to value the child not in virtue of being one’s child, but for the child’s ability to contribute to a goal that one has independently chosen for the child. 

So as a child, what must it be like growing up in a community where both one’s parents and one’s community value one’s death more than they value one’s life?  Offhand, it is difficult to fathom how this might be a good thing for the child.  Indeed, I should think that it would occasion massive cognitive dissonance on the part of the child.  Worse, how could we not have anything other than a form of profound psychological abuse here?  For a culture of “martyrdom” is incompatible with forging and underwriting day after day all the psychological ties that create warmth and nurturance between parent and child. 

Teaching a child that he is valuable as “martyr” is tantamount to teaching the child that here on earth his life does not matter.  And teaching a child that his life does not matter here on earth is utterly incompatible with conveying to the child the sentiment to the child that she he is uniquely valued simply in virtue of being one’s child. 

Now, I understand that the child is also told that he will go to a better place, namely heaven.  Needless to say, insofar as that claim has any merit in the eyes of the child, it is surely owing to the trust that a child naturally has in his parents.  Offhand, that seems simple enough.  But wait a minute: there are few issues here that need to be addressed.

It is through his parents that a child first understands the world.  And from the standpoint of a child, going to heaven does not change that.  After all, it is not as if the parent and child are dying together.  This brings me specifically to the issue of psychological abuse.

We cannot have a culture of “martyrdom” without, at the very same time, creating a massive level of separation anxiety on the part of the children.  If Freud teaches anything, it is that children will do just about anything to reduce the fear of separation anxiety; for its destructiveness is pervasive.  When the parent-child relationship is as it should be, this fear is kept at a minimum in the first place; and the relationship can be as it should be only if the parents are concerned to convey to the child that he is uniquely valued in their eyes, and so valued with regard to his accomplishments. 

A culture of “martyrdom”, however, unintentionally fosters separation anxiety on the child’s part.  And that, in fact, constitutes a form of psychological abuse.  To be sure, I understand that folks are not sitting around saying “Let us create separation anxiety on the part of our children”.  But this is the reality nonetheless.

After all, even if the claim of heavenly rewards for sacrificing one’s life are true, a child is in no position to grasp intellectually what this is all about.  A child barely has a concept of the future here on earth.  Thus, the idea of heaven is simply beyond its grasp, except as a story that he is being told.  But to accept this story just as it is being told by his parents already has as its motivational force the desire to please his parents and elders.  And this in the end has to be traumatic. 

What other reason might a child have to believe that his death is a good thing other than the motivation to please his parents and elders?  Surely no such thought comes naturally to the child.  Surely it is not that the child cannot grasp the wherewithal of heaven or cannot begin to have a conceptual understanding of martyrdom.  Unlike candy, say, the words “heaven” and “martyrdom” do not have their own independent appeal to a child.  Certainly, the idea of death does not. 

If these remarks point in the right direction, it may be no accident that radical Islam has succeeded in producing so many suicide-bombers.  For these are individuals who come from a culture in which, from the very start, they were not uniquely valued by their parents. 

On this analysis, suicide-bombers tend to be those individuals seeking to fill the void left by the massive deprivation of valuing that is characteristic of the culture in which they were raised.  Like the adult who was sexually abused as a child who has an inappropriate affinity for children in spite of himself, the suicide-bomber is more desperate for affirmation than most of can even begin to imagine.  He typically comes from a culture of devaluation.  And his act of suicide-bombing is a desperate attempt to find the value that he never had. 

The problem, of course, is this deprivation of value is endemic of Islamic fanatic culture.  Less politely, this form of child abuse is endemic of Islamic fanatic culture.  Hence, suicide-bombers are plentiful.

A different kind of child abuse takes place in the Sambian culture. Oral sex is required of young adolescents as is a right of passage.  The point, then, is that child abuse can be a cultural phenomenon.  Sambian culture is one exemplification of this truth.  Islamic fundamentalism is another.  

t the risk of sounding sexist, every man knows that trying to have a discussion with a woman in tears is rather like trying to fly a plane that has wheels but no wings.  One can move; one can taxi to the runway; one can even go down the runway.  However, there will be no lift-off.  As shall become clear, this point is extremely relevant to my argument, as I shall use the point to make a most significant observation about pity when I draw a contrast between Muslim Arabs and Jews.  But obviously, I have gotten ahead of myself. 

If anyone is looking for quite substantial evidence that unabashed evil is making a most dramatic comeback, I think that I have found it.  After World War II, only the ridiculous or the foolish or the whacked embraced Nazi values.  Hitler served as a benchmark of what one was not supposed to be, whatever it is that one might want to be.  Furthermore, it was all but unthinkable that anyone would dare utter that Hitler did not finish the job.  Certainly, anyone who said that knew that he had thereby revealed his hand, and would be considered an evil human being by all sorts of individuals. 

But times have changed, as the sign to the left, which proclaims that the Nazis are back, makes abundantly clear.  This sign was portrayed at an antiwar demonstration.  One can only wonder just how can it be that at an anti-war demonstration of all things, the protestors fail to see the incongruity of brandishing hate signs.  Jews are the object these hate signs.  In one sense that it is irrelevant, since we would have an incongruity if, instead of Jews, the signed named another group.

In another sense, however, what we have is extremely revealing.  For if Muslim Arabs have as one of their aims to dehumanize Jews, then I am afraid that they are well on their way to success.  How we refer to people is indicative of the sensibilities that we have or, at any rate, think are appropriate.  This is why women objected so strenuously to the use of the term “girl” when referring to a woman who is well into her 30s, say.  For in terms of social standing, a girl is subordinate to a man; whereas the terms “woman” and “man” at least invite the idea of equality at the very outset. 

So if it has now become merely permissible to talk about hating Jews or ridding the world of them, then what we have is an indisputable indication that, with respect to Jews, the moral sensibilities of our society and many other societies in the world have become seriously numbed. 

Contrast the difference between Jews and blacks in this regard.  People trip all over themselves trying to make sure that their remarks regarding blacks are not inappropriate.  Indeed, people are loath to criticize a black, however warranted that criticism might be, lest they should give the impression that they are racist.  Black-on-black violence is destroying black communities; and when Bill Cosby himself—a man who has given millions of dollars to black colleges—chastised blacks “in the hood” for this, his character was roundly excoriated by many well-placed blacks and the NAACP. 

Jews have no chance whatsoever of attaining this kind of social deference.  But signs advocating the hatred of Jews by protest marchers in the United States?  That, needless to say, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. 

And again: the incongruity here is mind-boggling.  Part of the argument for the “no more war” mentality is that violence of any form (save that of self-defense, presumably) is wrong.  That principle certainly ought to extend to Jews.  But the proof that the failure to do so is ever so intentional and ever so mean-spirited is that Nazism itself is invoked.  In fact, the very claim is that Hitler did not finish the job.  So while it has become politically correct in many circles to see the Holocaust as not being primarily about the Jews, it is interesting that the “no more war” protestors understand the Holocaust in precisely that way.  Muslim Arabs, quite interestingly, are very clear that the Holocaust had the Jews as its primary aim.

Why Muslim Arabs have so masterfully turned Jews into an object of scorn is that Jews have long since ceased to be an object of pity.  By contrast, it is fashionable for Muslim Arabs in the Middle East to portray themselves as an object of pity.  They are "by definition" much worse off than Jews—and through no fault of their own.  Not at all, Jews are to blame. 

When it comes to public consumption, nothing is more effective than an image of pity.  And there is simply no way for Jews to win on that front.  Pity, of course, is a feeling that can be called forth by the right sort of imagery.  What is more, it is a feeling that can overshadow the facts.  Invoking feelings of pity can even be a way of deflecting criticism or punishment that a person rightly deserves.  In other words, pity can be very easily pressed in the service of evil.  Anyone who lives (or has lived) long enough will know what it is like to feel enormous pity for someone, while recognizing that it would be wrong to allow her behavior to be guided by that pity.  At their sentencing, there are vicious criminals will shed copious tears.  Watching it can almost be heart-wrenching.  All sorts of feelings of pity are invoked; and one has to remind oneself of the deeds committed by the person behind the tears.     

Any number of women have told me that when they are stopped by a male law officer for speeding, they have found that tears often prove to be a most effective way of not getting a speeding ticket.  Pity works even if it really shouldn’t.  It can work even when one knows that one is being played, as surely any number of male law officers will attest.  On this front, there is no way for men to win.  Even the new softer more sensitive male understands that that he is apt to get nowhere if he starts crying when stopped for speeding by a male law officer.

t the interpersonal level, there is nothing more powerful and more treacherous than romantic love.  This is because emotions often blind us to the reality of things.  The hope, of course, is that the moments that we find emotionally gratifying in romantic love will play themselves out again and again and again for the rest of our lives.   That hope is certainly possible, but the road to its realization is an extremely treacherous one. 

At its best, there is a magic to love that has no equal.  That magic, however, is sustained only by lots of hard work.  One aspect of that hard-work is the right level of honesty.  Another aspect is extraordinary self-knowledge. 

Perhaps nothing makes us more ripe for self-deception than love itself.  In this regard, I embrace without exception the principle of equity.  Quite simply, the principle is that whatever sacrifices one party makes, then the other party should make equally significant sacrifices.  A significant sacrifice is defined in terms of the resources (on every level) of each party.  Rarely do both parties make the same sacrifices.  This should come as no surprise, since rarely are people equally situated in every respect. 

I mention the principle of equity for the following reason.  Nothing introduces instability in a romantic relationship like a grudge on the part one against the other; and nothing is more likely to give rise to a grudge than the feeling that one has sacrificed more than the other to make the relationship work. 

It goes without saying that what counts as a sacrifice is, at least to some extent, a function of personal preferences.  If the only place in the world I should want to live is Syracuse (New York) because I just love the snow, then I make no sacrifices in becoming romantically involved with a woman who has such strong family ties to Syracuse that she cannot imagine herself leaving the area.  On that score, we are absolutely right for one another. 

Let us take an easy example that goes in the other direction.  Suppose I cannot imagine myself not traveling to New Orleans on a regular basis and the woman I am involved with detests flying.  In fact, she has never been on a plane.  We get along just fine.  Indeed, everyone thinks that we are a match made-in-heaven.  But what do we do with my like for New Orleans and her fear of flying? 

It is easy enough to say that a person should be more willing to sacrifice New Orleans for real love.  Besides, there is the reality that one can make the trip alone. 

This is such a great example; for what seems like a non-issue is not that all.  There are the heights of love and there is the routine of building a home together.  The example that I have just given bears mightily upon the latter, which in turn bears upon the former. 

My beloved may like my frequent jaunts to New Orleans to play in a jazz band because this gives her much desired psychological space to devote to her writing.  In that case, the scenario is very much a match made-in-heaven.  But not so if she hopes that in the future I become less interested in New Orleans, or I hope that she gets over her fear of flying.  In this instance, we are on a collision course,

Some people like their space; others want constant companionship.  This is a self-knowledge moment.  It is also an honesty moment.  It would be a mistake to set the matter aside on the grounds that one can deal with it later or “somehow” things will just work out.  It takes next to nothing for the scenario that I have given to turn into something rather nasty, although the initial description of things seems utterly innocuous. 

Innocuous it is.  But only at that isolated moment in time.  Whether it remains innocuous turns upon a host of factors, which brings me back to the principle of equity.

If my beloved sees my trips to New Orleans as an opportunity for writing, then she is making no sacrifice on my behalf.  I am not deserting her; rather, I am giving her some much desired space.  If, on the other hand, she is not a writer in need of her space, but the stay-at-home mother of our children, I would suspect that she is very likely have a problem with my jaunts to New Orleans.  You might very well think that it is rather unreasonable for me to be traveling like that to New Orleans.  Fair enough.  But then you see the point.  What seems like a most innocuous concern can turn out not to be that.  And guess what: if playing jazz in New Orleans means so much to me that this is what I want to do even if my wife is a stay-at-mom, then things are being set up for a grudge on someone's part. 

There is (a) the deep emotional attraction; and there is (b) the reality of living together.  The ideal, obviously, is for these two to be in synchronization with one another.  Honesty and self-knowledge is about whether we can actually acknowledge to ourselves that (a) and (b) are not when in fact they are not.  An awful lot of bitterns has been occasioned by dishonesty and hiding from the truth in an instance such this. 

We tell us ourselves that it is such a little thing that it will not matter.  But like the study drop or leak, little things over time invariably make a difference one way or the other. 

As I noted earlier, a person’s preferences are of the utmost importance.  A person can be exactly what she or he claims to be about a matter.  The person could be (i) completely indifferent to it.  Or, the individual could (ii) see the matter as allowing for a wonderful opportunity.  This is a self-knowledge moment.  Love by itself will not make it the case that either (i) or (ii) is true.  Deception in this instance, if that is the word for it, seems to be about thinking that love alone will resolve the problem. 

Most poignantly, love is no match for a deep-seated grudge occasioned by the sense that one party has sacrificed or is sacrificing more than the other to the relation.  Grudge is to love what rust is to iron. 

I remarked at the outset that with regard to interpersonal relationships there is nothing treacherous than love.  I can now rather succinctly put into words why this is so: It is very easy to say that one is acting out of love.  Not only that, it is very easy to think that one is acting out of love.  But it is precisely because love is so powerful that it is extremely easy to be self-deceived about why one is doing what one is doing for the other. 

Honesty and self-knowledge form the fundamental basis of the foundation upon which love firmly sits.  Painfully, the power of love is the reason why so few see this truth.