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Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Treble tradeoffs

I assume most boys naturally look forward to coming of age. At least normal boys who haven't been brainwashed by LGBT propaganda or disoriented by broken homes and separated from their fathers. Partly the desire for adult independence–although that has corresponding responsibilities they may not appreciate at that age. Partly the instinctive yearning to achieve one's natural telos. Although boyhood is a natural good, precious in its own right, it is tending towards a goal. To take a particular example, I assume most boys look forward to the day when their voice breaks and they develop an adult male voice. That's part of manhood. 

However, choirboys can be exceptions. I watched a special about the choirboys at King's College Chapel choir. Some of them were apprehensive about their voice breaking. That's because their treble voice makes them special. They get extra attention. It sets them apart. 

But once their voice breaks, they aren't special anymore. They revert to being ordinary boys. The garden-variety adolescent boy. 

So there's a tradeoff. They are becoming men, but they lose what makes them special in the process.

In the past, some outstanding trebles became castrati. I once read a woman defending the practice. She treated it as a business decision. She felt some boys had the maturity to make that decision. To preserve their gift.

Of course, castrati have no idea what they're giving up until it's too late. And even then, because they don't experience normal manhood, they still lack a full appreciation of what they lost in the process. That's why responsible adults need to act on behalf of children to prevent them from making shortsighted, irreversible, catastrophic choices. But the transgender lobby is doing the opposite. 

That invites comparison with other things. There's some correlation between high IQ or artistic talent and depression. Very smart or talented people are less likely to be happy. That's the price they pay for their gift. If they had a choice between happiness and talent, which would they opt for? For instance:

[Jonathan] Winters says he often drew on his Ohio childhood for characters. He says he was often lonely and his parents either ignored him or belittled him, even after his success...At the height of his success, in his early 30s, Jonathan Winters voluntarily committed himself to a private psychiatric hospital...Now he knows his diagnosis was bipolar disorder, but there were no effective medications for it back then. Winters says he declined the electroshock treatment that doctors said would erase some of the pain he was feeling. "I need that pain — whatever it is — to call upon it from time to time, no matter how bad it was," he says.


I mention these examples because they illustrate the principle of tradeoffs in theodicy, between incompatible goods. 

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