Wednesday’s Daily carried a very revealing article by April Goodwin.

On the surface, it stressed the importance of living life to the fullest and of paying attention to the present.

This was only a thin veil to hide her actual message: that human life and love consists of suffering.

She started by saying that “we cover up our moral failings” and that in doing so we “forfeit the true essence … of being human.”

Thus, in her view, the essence of humanity is moral failure.

She went on to explain that love consists of “sacrificing our self-interest for another” and that “before we can truly love anyone, we must reach a moment of utter depravity.”

According to her, our love only “becomes real” when we “realize how horrible we are” and when we “see others as better than ourselves.”

Speak for yourself, sister!

I can understand her position on the essence of humanity.

Believing that the essence of life is moral failure means believing that human survival must be accompanied by moral depravity — that living is immoral.

If you accept a morality like hers, it’s natural to believe that depravity is the essence of being human.

Of course, a rational morality doesn’t have these problems.

When you learn that selfishness and a proper understanding of one’s self-interest are the core components of ethics, you learn that there is no gulf between the moral and the practical, and virtue (not failure) is the essence of life.

I have encountered her “life is depravity” position many times before.

Her “love is depravity” position is quite ominous and unsettling to me.

Why can’t I love unless I am humiliated?

Why is my love fake unless I understand how horrible I am?

Why does love consist of sacrificing my values instead of cherishing them?

Is it worth pointing out that I would feel nothing but contempt for a person who would debase themselves in order to win my love?

I want the highest type of woman I can find, not some sniveling, depraved, low, humiliated rotter.

I have no values to seek from people who strive to sacrifice all their values and to make themselves worthless.

Not romance, not friendship, not even respect.

I would accuse April of instructing us to love the depraved because they are depraved, but she’s doing worse: she’s instructing us to become depraved so that we may love more meaningfully!

In my book, love is a response to the virtues of another. In hers, love is a response to the moral failures and depravity of another.

Where’s she getting this absurdity from?

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Kyle Markley

Senior

Computer science

President, Objectivists at ISU