friends from raids by the fbi and the grinding poverty of an artist's life in new york city at no point by the way do we have any discussion of the impact of this on the child mr prima entered into a marriage of convenience with a man she distrusted he was the ex-boyfriend of her male best friend besides its messy origins this relationship resembles the dream i've heard so many straight women describe in a joking not joking way wishing to start a family with a friend to avoid the complications of romantic love but mr prima is honest about the limitations of the arrangement she wrote that she avoided the pains of romance but the man she married is still a domineering abusive mess in her recounting furthermore in marriage she has lost something integral to herself quote one of my most precious and valued possessions was my independence my struggle for control over my own life i didn't see that it had no intrinsic value for anyone but myself that it was a coin that was precious only within the realm a currency that could not cross borders says the columnist for the new york times these words when i read them sounded in me like the chime of a tuning fork because again all of society is about her right all the rules have to be changed for her she is the only person in the world those who panic over the rise in the number of single americans do not see that this statistic includes lives of hard-won independence lives that still intersect with a community with a home with a belief in something wider than oneself the people clinging to old narratives around singledom and marriage can't yet see these lives for what they are because as mr prima puts it they are not an objectively valuable commodity their meaning is a currency that cannot cross borders these lives threaten the communal narratives currently in place but what is a threat to some can be to others a glimmer of a new world coming ah that's the key right the communal narratives which we would normally refer to as societal institutions that promote human flourishing those need to go away and so if you live life in in direct conflict with those institutions you are living your life politically right your life is now a political act this is why the personal is political for the left left believes that if you live your life in these ways that you are striking a blow against whatever institution they don't like the patriarchy marriage capitalism and there's only one problem when you blow up these institutions institutions don't go away you just get new institutions and they are much much much worse because when people live together there have to be rules and shared frameworks and somebody has to design those rules and shared frameworks either it can be the wisdom of ages passed down generation over generation gradually attuned by human reason and by the wisdom of experience or it can be a bunch of morons who have decided that their subjective pleasure is more important than actual institutions that have helped create human happiness over the course of thousands of years that's what this is about and and you can see this it's present in practical politics the reason i spend so much time on this is because as we'll see this applies to a variety of political issues that affect your daily life people have decided that institutions don't matter because they're the only people on earth who matter we'll get to this in just one second first what is your new year's resolution if you're
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN one second first what is your new year's resolution if you're END_SPONSOR_TOKEN