Fire and Knowledge

Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or bit of bacon, would you not think that in the country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

One critic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving. He meant, of course, to imply that such things as the strip-tease act resulted not from sexual corruption but from sexual starvation. I agree with him that if, in some strange land, we found that similar acts with mutton chops were popular, one of the possible explanations which would occur to me would be famine. But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one. In the same way, before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of the strip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those changes when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times. Nor is the hypothesis of “starvation” the only one we can imagine. Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about good, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations.

—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity (1952), pp. 96-97

Here is an interesting article about Carl Honore at News.com. I think it is very important for us to realize how distracted we are. We can’t drive without talking on cell phones. We can’t walk without music. We can’t read without the phone ringing. Unless we make a conscious effort to combat all of this distraction pollution, we will drown in it without even realizing it.

The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really creative state.

The result, says Carl Honore, journalist and author of “In Praise of Slowness,” is a situation where the digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run more smoothly are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks accomplished.

Honore, who cited the estimate of an interruption every three minutes, acknowledges that he would not part with his laptop or phone. But he adds that “it’s possible to get too much of a good thing. As a society, that’s where we are at the moment.”

[HT: Aaron and Slashdot]

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations — race, battle, bread — dissolve into the vague phrases “success or failure in competitive activities.” This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing — no one capable of using phrases like “objective considerations of contemporary phenomena” — would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (”time and chance”) that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes. As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.

—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g. , and etc. , there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones…

—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

Dr. Doug Groothuis, in a letter to the managing editor of Time, has a compelling and concise overview on why some events should not be photographed or shown. Be sure to read this.

Chastity is the most unpopular of Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong.

But I have other reasons for thinking so. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.

—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, pp. 95-96

Introduction

Love.  It is one of the most complicated, yet most desired virtues—it is what every human heart longs for.  Is that not why the most devastating thing a parent could say to his child is “I do not love you”?  Or a spouse telling the other “I hate you”?  It is also why the love of God is one of the most amazingly precious truths—it is answer to our dominant longing.  Without love, life seems meaningless.

Love is usually associated with the marital relationship between a man and woman.  Historically, the common way to peruse marriage has been courtship and betrothal.  Around the time automobiles were mass-produced dating began to replace courtship.  New freedom was given to teenagers—namely, four motorized wheels and a backseat.  Before the automobile, spending time with your lover without your family was rare.  Nowadays, it is rare to spend time with your lover together with family.  Because of this, a wave of unprecedented sexual freedom (that is actually bondage) has swept in that has not been seen since pagan times.

The Internet appeared around a century after the automobile.  We (or at least some of us) are currently watching how the Internet is shaping culture.  No technology is neutral, and all technologies affect culture for the better and for the worse.  We are constantly reminded what benefits modern technology bring; yet we ponder little what it will destroy.

With the dawning of the Internet came immense globalization.  Instantly you could chat with someone in Hong Kong for the same price as someone next door.  The potential advantages for communication and growth seemed endless.

It was only a matter of time before “personal ads” would move to the Internet.  Since it is by nature a more interactive and global medium than newspapers, it was destined to be popular.  Perhaps there isn’t anyone compatible with you in your city, but maybe there is in another state or country.  Or at least that is how the thinking goes.

When I looked for articles assessing the negatives of online dating, I found very little.  In fact, I found only one article, and it was hardly what one could consider negative.  Now, I am sure there are articles available somewhere, but the point is that I could not find them easily and that means neither could someone wanting reasons why online dating could be personally and socially dangerous.  Therefore, I have decided to make my own small case against the current practice of online dating.

Online dating seems like the perfect solution to humanity’s love problems.  A popular idea is that people can’t get along because they don’t have enough in common or do not “match” up.  We supposedly know this because couples lose interest in one another, or as many put it, “fall out of love.”  The solution, then, make sure you are compatible before you begin dating.  Surely that will make the relationship more “lovely.”

So online dating services take a survey of the applicant’s likes and dislikes, what color hair and eyes they have, what kind of music they listen to, etc. ad nausem and then shows them a list of matches.

The Perceived Benefits

From what I can gather, there are three main perceived benefits of online dating.

• You can find the person that you have dreamed about, since you can find out everything about them before you even decide to email them.
• Location is not an issue anymore.  You used to be limited to the few people in your city, now you only limited by those with an Internet connection.
• You can get to know someone without the commitment of actually getting together.

The Problems

Anyone can see how the perceived advantages could be tempting.  Who doesn’t want to find Mr. or Mrs. Right?  However, I believe there are far more problems with online dating then there are advantages.

• Unparalleled Frankness.  When you read all these self-revealed facts about someone you don’t know, you can “hit it right off” because you already know a wealth of information about them.  Yet that information also creates a pseudo-intimacy that leads to unhealthy and premature frankness.  Add to this the removal of personal intimacy through the medium of text and you have one bold man and woman.  They will say things to each other that people in a real relationship could not say for months, if not years.  You know what I mean if you have been involved (or know someone) involved in an “Internet-based” relationship.
• Extreme Dishonesty.  It is estimated that 1/5 of online daters are married men.  You never know who you are really talking to—even what gender or “sexual orientation” they are—until you meet them and see them for who they really are.  And by that time, it may be too late.
• Knowing only a façade.  Even if a person is being more honest than dishonest, they usually put their best foot forward when talking about themselves.  But online you can be an entirely different person.  People create multiple online personas.  It is the ultimate place of being whoever you want to be.
• Turns love into shopping.  It is one thing to shop around for the best price on a car, but it is a whole other thing to shop around for a date by pre-defined answers.  “Hmm, let’s see, I’d like a girl with brown hair, blue eyes, 5’9’, 120lbs, smart, and funny.” (Of course, thousands of matches would probably come up, since people seem to find ways of exaggerating these qualities.)
• Let’s men be wimps.  Let’s be honest here.  It takes “guts” to ask a girl out on a date.  Let’s continue to be honest.  It takes none to email some girl you’ve never met.  If there is an easy way out, most wimps will take it.  Consider the middle school way of asking someone out: “Uh, hi my name is Scott and my friend Johnny over there—yeah, the one with buck teeth and pimples—he wanted me to ask you if—hey, come back!”  Real men don’t hide behind friends or email.
• Profiles based on what the person thinks of themselves, not what you think of them. Even if a person is being more honest than dishonest, they usually put their best foot forward when talking about themselves.  But online you can be an entirely different person.  People create multiple online personas.  It is the ultimate place of being whoever you want to be.

  When you look at someone’s “profile” or “autobiography,” you are basing your “match” on what that person thinks of himself.  So, even though one girl might say “I am a vivacious, intelligent, warm-hearted, attractive, cool chick, with a sharp, witty, and effervescent personality” you might say “She’s an airhead” after watching her with her friends for 30 seconds.  But you won’t know that until you finally decide to meet up somewhere, which could be weeks to years down the road.

• Removes support and accountability of family and friends.  Good relationships thrive best when nourished with support and accountability from friends and family.  Friends an2d family want what is best for you and can often see when something isn’t working out long before you can.  It is nearly impossible to have any accountability on the Internet—which is, of course, one reason why people love it.

Based on the above reasons, I cannot in good conscience recommend online dating to anyone.  Are there exceptions?  Yes!  Marvelous exceptions where God has used online dating to bring people together who genuinely love one another.  But let us not look for truth in exceptions.  Let us look for truth through the normative experience of healthy relationships from the past and at the present.

Update 2/1/07: Scientific American has an article on “The Truth about Online Dating.”

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give [to others and to charity]. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them.

—C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, p. 86