He was surprised to find that this was in fact a very uncommon motive. Most had been driven to suicide by financial difficulties. In addition to new anxieties, both these recent revolutions have exposed us to some very difficult questions about freedom and responsibility. It has been odd, in the recent Washington scandals, to hear supporters of President Clinton raise the cry that sexual relations are an entirely private matter. Anyone who is not should be sent away to do curve-matching exercises on the graphs for postwar illegitimacy rates, welfare dependency, crime, etc.
Human sexuality has momentous consequences for society.
One is mildly astonished to find oneself still obliged to write such a sentence. Similarly, we are now all acutely conscious that our private decisions about what to do with our money have major economic consequences. Suppose, for example, that we all go out tomorrow and spend our savings on stocks. By the well-known law of supply and demand, that will greatly raise the price of stocks. But the price of a stock is supposed to bear some relation to the worth of the company that issued it.