Mondays are reserved for questions from students.  This student is writing from Oxford.

It’s strange how the notion that men and women are identical works against the very equality that it tries to uphold.  The same, are they?  The same as what?  Though with some dissimulation, identicalists almost always answer, "The same as men."

People used to be taught to associate with persons who are good.  Since the cardinal sin is now viewed as having opinions about the matter, we don’t consider whether people are good any more.  Now we ask whether they are “nice.”

It is still a moral judgment, but it doesn’t look so much like one.

In certain times – ours is one of them -- war among different understandings of the world produces a fear of ideology.  In the name of getting along, the cry then goes up that we must all become non-ideological.  People who admit that they believe in something are called fanatics.

And then there was the young man caught interviewed on video camera by a roving reporter after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke during year five of the Clinton administration.  Yes, I know that seems like the bronze age to at least half of you, faithful readers, but I’m still thinking about yesterday’s “bad man, good statesman” question.

Reporter (I'm quoting from memory):  “Does the scandal affect your view of the president?”

“Even a bad man can be a good statesman.”  It’s not true, but I’ve noticed that people who say this sort of thing tend to be unimpressed by explanations of the unity of the virtues.

Readers:

Mondays I now reserve for student letters.  These two were responses to an article in which I counseled a young man and his girlfriend to remain chaste.  Please keep in mind my audience.  The article appeared in a Christian magazine, and both readers belonged to my own faith.  One should only do sums with people who believe in arithmetic; the same with quotations from Scripture.

Reader One:  Thanks.

I suppose we have all heard the argument that that modesty produces dirty minds by promoting a “mystique” about the body.  On this view, if we want clean minds, we should show more rump and cleavage.