Thoughts on NTY Marriage Story Feature
New York Times has a weekly section on marriage which features the best marriage story among the ones submitted. Except when NYT wants to get some controversy raising attention, the marriages couples who have warm fluffy love stories are featured. Last week's feature unleashed a tirade of comments across the blogosphere about how despicable the feature was. It was the marriage of a former NBC anchor Carol Anne Riddell and the handsome president of media sales John Partilla, President of Global Media Sales.
It is a case of two divorcees gettting remarried. Divorcees getting remarried is a good thing. Sometimes, people get married to the wrong people and it would do much better for them and their kids to seperate rather than to be abused. But what was really noteworthy about this divorce and remarriage is that there was no history of abuse or ostentatious incompatibility in their original marriages, the reason why they divorced is because after having been married to a person for more than 10 years and having kids, these people suddenly realized that they were in love with someone else. But this is not the cause for the anger unleashed.
The story goes like this... Two families were friends who were going places from Restuarants to Vacations together for a few years until one of the spouses in each of the families get 'hitched' with each other and decide to dump the other spouse. The four people have 5 children between them. Basically Mr and Mrs. Ennis and Mr. and Mrs. Partilla are good friends until Mrs. Ennis and Mr. Partilla decide to get married and then dump their respective spouses. The dumped Mr. Ennis is himself a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp and is now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier. The Ex Mrs. Partilla is a high level media executive as well.
We live in a world were somewhere between 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 marriages end up in divorce. I am sure this sort foursome scandals has happens quite a bit. But two reasons make this news feature infamous. One, the gumption that this couple had in sending their story to be featured the New York Times unmindful of the hurt it may cause their their ex-spouses and kids. Two, the notorious decision taken by NY to post it without even fact-checking with the ex-spouses. I don't intend to analyse NYT's motives, afer all the media loves to grab attention, besides NYT has a liberal worldview.
What stuck me most was the justification given the couple for their childishly selfish behavior. I wonder what made them think their story was an exemplary case of courage and bravery as exemplified in the comments below. I wonder what gave them a sense of entitlement to admiration of the readers.
Partilla says, “I didn’t believe in the word soul mate before, but now I do". Caroll says, “He said, ‘Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,’ I would say the kids are going to be great, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives making it so.” She adds, “I came to realize it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift,” she said. “But I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?”
Having assumed that they have earned the readers admiration for being brave, they now indulge in quite a bit of self-pity feeling entitled to empathy.
NYT says, "As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it."
It is incredible that it was lost on them that they acted like kids who want to 'feel good' play and dont want to work hard at homework. They shun pain and want to do what makes them feel good with a mypoic view of only their own self-interest, causing pain to their ex-spouses who did not abuse them and their kids who were not abused in their original marriages either. They want the world to applaud them for yeilding their childish 'feel good' proclivities.
Caroll says, “My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”
Actually, in the photograph of cake cutting at the reception where the five children are pictured, the face of the eldest girl who is probably 12ish is void of any clear emotion except may be angst. The stark fact is that Caroll's sentiment of 'deeply in love' is directed at none except her own feelings of love. This is the kind of immaturity that Shakespeare describes as 'love loves love'.
Mr. Partilla feels that "...options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly".
It is intresting that the couple associate dishonesty with a feeling rather than their 'unprovoked' betrayal of their original spousal commitment. When there was no abuse in their original marriage, that they betrayed their committment to their spouse isn't seen as being dishonest by these 'blind lovers'. It is incredible that to excersice some 'self-control' over their 'frivolous' feelings is seen as being dishonest. Aren't self-control and honesty virtues which go hand in hand?
I wonder what they tell their kids when the kids 'feel' like they want to always play pingpong video games and eat french fries and avoid the pain of doing homework and eating healthy. Would they encourage their kids to just be 'true' to the feelings and avoid all hardwork so that they wouldn't be dishonest to the way the feel about things??? Or would they teach them the virtue of self-control???
Interestingly, they are not alone in their skewed idea of dishonesty which is contained only within the realms of their feelings and has nothing to do with their commitment to a person. One of the very few bloggers who supported them said, "...I feel encouraged to see that they are loyal to how they feel".
Until quite recently, Loyalty was something that can only be attributed to people. Would loyalty have the same meaning even if it attributed to non-personalities? Perhaps, it seems only right that after having desecrated the virtue of honesty, in the same vein, they should extend it to the other age-old virtue like loyalty. Of course, unsaid, the virtue of love has been desecrated the worst of all. When 'feelings' takes precedence to Truth there is no saying where it goes.
This is a malady of the age we live in - The Age of Sentimentality. It is an age where we give an inordinate importance to how we feel about things. Unlike our ancestors, our greatest goal in life isn't aligning our life to the Truth of life, rather we pursue a 'feel good' factor about life. Steve Jobs in one of his interviews said it best, "I don't care about what is right or wrong, I care about success". In fact, the reason (apart from rigid i-phone protocols) why i-phones aren't used it the corporate world is becuase they aren't robust equipments, they just 'feel good'.
Back in those days when families were still stable and psychatrists weren't in much demand, people had a sense of what the Truth was, they tried to align their life to the Truth. Self-control was a virtue because it helped them align their life to the right way to live. But now, we live in a post-modern (hyper-modern) world and so Truth is relative. When Truth becomes relative, feelings take precedence. The result is the 'abolition of manhood' and move back to 'childishness'.
C.S.Lewis said in his book, 'The Abolition of Man' says that our generation is creating men without chests. Humankind has a chest and a spine so that they can go against their basal instinct and put the interest of their kids and spouses above their own and be truly loving and develop character. Once we loose our handle on absolute Truth and relegate right and wrong to the realm of frivolous feelings, we are sowing seeds for decadence of our civilization because none of the virtues that make man a man means anything anymore except how they make you feel at different points in time. I believe it is in this vein that G.K.Chesterton said, "A civilization can stand in one angle, and fall in every other. We are now testing angles."
The entitlement that this couple have to be admired and empathized with after having acted so immaturely following their feelings, is symptom of a decadence that has set in our civiliation. When sentiments and feelings to take precedence over Virtues and Truth, man loses his manishness. When man loses his God given manish nature, the civilization he creates begins to die, albeit a slow death.
It is a case of two divorcees gettting remarried. Divorcees getting remarried is a good thing. Sometimes, people get married to the wrong people and it would do much better for them and their kids to seperate rather than to be abused. But what was really noteworthy about this divorce and remarriage is that there was no history of abuse or ostentatious incompatibility in their original marriages, the reason why they divorced is because after having been married to a person for more than 10 years and having kids, these people suddenly realized that they were in love with someone else. But this is not the cause for the anger unleashed.
The story goes like this... Two families were friends who were going places from Restuarants to Vacations together for a few years until one of the spouses in each of the families get 'hitched' with each other and decide to dump the other spouse. The four people have 5 children between them. Basically Mr and Mrs. Ennis and Mr. and Mrs. Partilla are good friends until Mrs. Ennis and Mr. Partilla decide to get married and then dump their respective spouses. The dumped Mr. Ennis is himself a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp and is now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier. The Ex Mrs. Partilla is a high level media executive as well.
We live in a world were somewhere between 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 marriages end up in divorce. I am sure this sort foursome scandals has happens quite a bit. But two reasons make this news feature infamous. One, the gumption that this couple had in sending their story to be featured the New York Times unmindful of the hurt it may cause their their ex-spouses and kids. Two, the notorious decision taken by NY to post it without even fact-checking with the ex-spouses. I don't intend to analyse NYT's motives, afer all the media loves to grab attention, besides NYT has a liberal worldview.
What stuck me most was the justification given the couple for their childishly selfish behavior. I wonder what made them think their story was an exemplary case of courage and bravery as exemplified in the comments below. I wonder what gave them a sense of entitlement to admiration of the readers.
Partilla says, “I didn’t believe in the word soul mate before, but now I do". Caroll says, “He said, ‘Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,’ I would say the kids are going to be great, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives making it so.” She adds, “I came to realize it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift,” she said. “But I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?”
Having assumed that they have earned the readers admiration for being brave, they now indulge in quite a bit of self-pity feeling entitled to empathy.
NYT says, "As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it."
It is incredible that it was lost on them that they acted like kids who want to 'feel good' play and dont want to work hard at homework. They shun pain and want to do what makes them feel good with a mypoic view of only their own self-interest, causing pain to their ex-spouses who did not abuse them and their kids who were not abused in their original marriages either. They want the world to applaud them for yeilding their childish 'feel good' proclivities.
Caroll says, “My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”
Actually, in the photograph of cake cutting at the reception where the five children are pictured, the face of the eldest girl who is probably 12ish is void of any clear emotion except may be angst. The stark fact is that Caroll's sentiment of 'deeply in love' is directed at none except her own feelings of love. This is the kind of immaturity that Shakespeare describes as 'love loves love'.
Mr. Partilla feels that "...options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly".
It is intresting that the couple associate dishonesty with a feeling rather than their 'unprovoked' betrayal of their original spousal commitment. When there was no abuse in their original marriage, that they betrayed their committment to their spouse isn't seen as being dishonest by these 'blind lovers'. It is incredible that to excersice some 'self-control' over their 'frivolous' feelings is seen as being dishonest. Aren't self-control and honesty virtues which go hand in hand?
I wonder what they tell their kids when the kids 'feel' like they want to always play pingpong video games and eat french fries and avoid the pain of doing homework and eating healthy. Would they encourage their kids to just be 'true' to the feelings and avoid all hardwork so that they wouldn't be dishonest to the way the feel about things??? Or would they teach them the virtue of self-control???
Interestingly, they are not alone in their skewed idea of dishonesty which is contained only within the realms of their feelings and has nothing to do with their commitment to a person. One of the very few bloggers who supported them said, "...I feel encouraged to see that they are loyal to how they feel".
Until quite recently, Loyalty was something that can only be attributed to people. Would loyalty have the same meaning even if it attributed to non-personalities? Perhaps, it seems only right that after having desecrated the virtue of honesty, in the same vein, they should extend it to the other age-old virtue like loyalty. Of course, unsaid, the virtue of love has been desecrated the worst of all. When 'feelings' takes precedence to Truth there is no saying where it goes.
This is a malady of the age we live in - The Age of Sentimentality. It is an age where we give an inordinate importance to how we feel about things. Unlike our ancestors, our greatest goal in life isn't aligning our life to the Truth of life, rather we pursue a 'feel good' factor about life. Steve Jobs in one of his interviews said it best, "I don't care about what is right or wrong, I care about success". In fact, the reason (apart from rigid i-phone protocols) why i-phones aren't used it the corporate world is becuase they aren't robust equipments, they just 'feel good'.
Back in those days when families were still stable and psychatrists weren't in much demand, people had a sense of what the Truth was, they tried to align their life to the Truth. Self-control was a virtue because it helped them align their life to the right way to live. But now, we live in a post-modern (hyper-modern) world and so Truth is relative. When Truth becomes relative, feelings take precedence. The result is the 'abolition of manhood' and move back to 'childishness'.
C.S.Lewis said in his book, 'The Abolition of Man' says that our generation is creating men without chests. Humankind has a chest and a spine so that they can go against their basal instinct and put the interest of their kids and spouses above their own and be truly loving and develop character. Once we loose our handle on absolute Truth and relegate right and wrong to the realm of frivolous feelings, we are sowing seeds for decadence of our civilization because none of the virtues that make man a man means anything anymore except how they make you feel at different points in time. I believe it is in this vein that G.K.Chesterton said, "A civilization can stand in one angle, and fall in every other. We are now testing angles."
The entitlement that this couple have to be admired and empathized with after having acted so immaturely following their feelings, is symptom of a decadence that has set in our civiliation. When sentiments and feelings to take precedence over Virtues and Truth, man loses his manishness. When man loses his God given manish nature, the civilization he creates begins to die, albeit a slow death.