Tom Piatak

March 13, 2008

Although most Americans are disgusted at Eliot Spitzer and pleased by his resignation, it makes sense to pay attention to what his defenders are saying.  For example, the alleged comedian Bill Maher, who defended Spitzer at the Huffington Post on the grounds that “people need sex and married people generally aren’t getting it.”

Maher has just articulated the philosophy behind much of what the modern West holds dear:  abortion on demand, graphic sex education for children, no fault divorce, easy access to pornography, and a debased popular culture blanketed by ever more pervasive and graphic depictions of sex and apparently funded by a seemingly endless number of ads for Viagra and the like.  The view of such as Maher is that man is nothing more than an animal, that his animal needs represent the summum bonum of our existence,  that self-control is impossible, and that self-denial is a dreadful relic of a horrific past.  The widespread revulsion toward Spitzer is a sign of hope, of course, but if the past 40 years is a guide to the future, the Eliot Spitzers of 2048 will have nothing to fear.