Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Here's Michael Medved, the right-wing film critic, pundit, and radio host, writing last September:

Multiple sex partners: Trendy but toxic

...Deferred gratification remains the one indispensable element in establishing and sustaining civilization – focusing our efforts on future benefits rather than immediate pleasures. The often tedious, punishing work involved in shaping a skyscraper, designing an airplane or discovering a polio vaccine may provide scant satisfaction for our deep-seated, instinctive desires, but such effort characterizes the inescapable superiority – yes, superiority – of advanced cultures over tribal barbarism.

...The basis for monogamous marriage remains the same as the foundation for all social advancement – placing a priority on the long-term well-being of society rather than personal and immediate gratification. "Polyamory" adventure may feel like fun and might arguably represent a natural inclination for the species, but it's difficult to argue that it serves the interests of our offspring. For that reason, most parents will continue the attempt to control themselves – our children, and our civilization, depend on it.


Here's Medved in an undated interview from last year:

But the point that I emphasize in Hollywood vs. America, and that I've emphasized in all my work, has been that the real power of TV, movies and popular music is not that someone is going to see something and then run out and immediately imitate it. That happens, but it doesn't happen with everyone. What happens with everyone is that we allow mass media to normalize outrageous and unacceptable behavior. ... if you see the most glamorous people in the world engaging in some behavior, whether it is violence or promiscuous heterosexual sex or homosexuality or foul language or whatever it is, it provides a sanction, an acceptability, for others to do the same.

Think Medved brought up any of this when adulterer, serial groper, and former orgiast Arnold Schwarzenegger was a guest on his radio show yesterday?

(Hint: Medved has told doubting righty purists on his show that Schwarzie's OK, and his site provides a convenient link to the Schwarzie campaign's official site.)

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