Amen to that . . .

From an anonymous commenter at The American Scene, remarking on the way different perceptions of the "hook-up culture" reflect different ideas about the purposes of our lives:

. . . Our real point isn't me judging you, or vice versa -- it's differences in what we think society should establish as norms, and differences in _how we think people really are_, and _what people are for_. I think they're for something, you (I think) in the end wouldn't perhaps _say_ it, but you think we're not really for anything at all -- that we are ephemeral conglomerations of shifting molecules drifting towards entropic oblivion, assigning more meaning to our physical conjunctions and synapse firings than these can possible merit. You don't really have much higher to aim for than the pleasure of the moment (well, combined with bourgeoise self-protection to make sure that folks of your class at least don't take any consequences destructive of their financial or material well-being, and to maximize long-term return on investment). That's reasonable. But, as I said earlier (and now am wasting my time), why we all think we can have any useful conversations is beyond me. I don't particularly want to make your meaningless "fun" illegal, for practical reasons -- I just want to shape society's expectations and norms in order to make virtue easier (this is the definition of a good society). Of course I can "judge" (in a sense) relationships I'm not actually part of -- most of us judge emotional abuse and beyond that, I can't imagine how anyone can, say, read a novel without indulging in this. The other kind of judging I leave to God, who may have mercy on all our shabby souls this Ash Wednesday.