From: tlode@isis.cs.du.edu (trygve lode)
Subject: Re: Sanctity of relationships
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Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 22:54:21 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.063451.9244@ultra.com> stcroix@ultra.com (Bill St. Croix) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.173110.24380@cbfsb.cb.att.com> sms@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (steven.m.stein) writes:
>>
>>Again, your analogy does not make any sense.  Hitler was and is 
>>directly responsible for the slaughter of millions of people.  He
>>was the one "incharge" and the one originating the orders.  He was
>>the ruler.
>
>Oh...so Hitler killed all those people??  Hitler was responsible for giving
>the orders for the killings and the ones that did the transporting/killing
>were all just as guilty.  I think the analogy (by the way Steve, look up
>the word in the dictionary) is valid for what the discussion is about.  Your
>saying that it is the woman's choice to leave the man...whether or not there
>is another man in the scene.  But, just as Hilter (for lack of a better word)
>*influenced* the others to kill all the people they did, you *influenced* the
>woman by being there with her.  You may not have told her, "Hey, you have to
>leave him."  But I don't think Hitler handed a gun to each and EVERY one
>of his subbordants and told them to kill the people the way they did.
>
>Any way you cut it, the influence is still there!

Oddly enough, I'm reminded of a couple of situations.  I have a friend who
used to feel that she had to be dating somebody and wouldn't leave a 
relationship until she had another one to go to and, as often happens
under such circumstances, she ended up in a bad relationship that was
also somewhat isolating and so she just kept staying in it.  (I won't
go into detail about the guy, but suffice it to say that he not only
read every Gor book as soon as it came out, he also went so far as to
highlight the sections he thought were most important.)

Anyway, one day the two of them were at a party and he wandered off to
talk to some people that he knew, leaving her on a couch with some of
the other shy types who weren't up to leaping into the main crowd.
Somehow, she started up a conversation with some of the people there
and, after a while, realized how much she had missed being related to
as a human being instead of an object to be pushed into a role defined
by Gor books.  Soon thereafter, despite the fact that she had been in
a committed relationship with the guy, she broke up with him.

Another woman I know was married, but not happilly so.  One day she
developed some visual problems and ended up in the hospital for some
tests, the first of which suggested that she probably had a brain tumor
and her chances for survival might not be so great.  They ran more tests
and it turned out that she didn't have a tumor after all, but this
brush with mortality made her think about her life and prompted her
to file for divorce and start taking responsibility for making her life
better--which it now is.

Now, should we blame a couple of shy guys on a couch and a doctor for
breaking up someone's relationship and draw comparisons between them
and Hitler?  People and their lives are much too complicated to draw
such simple black-and-white moral distinctions as "third parties in
extramarital affairs are always horrible people who have no regard
for others."  Judgments about what is good and what is bad in people's
lives must be made in the context of that person's life--and the one
who is best suited to making that decision (and is responsible for its
consequences) is the person whose life it is.

Trygve    (Fortunately, relatively few relationships involve nearly as many
           casualties as WWII.)