In this week’s New Yorker, Adam Gopnik, talking about sex and politics, reminds us of the Yiddish saying which can be roughly translated like this:
“When passion walks in the door, reason jumps out the window.”
The reverse can also be true.
“When reality walks in the door, desire escapes through the chimney.”
Desire is not subject to the language of judicious choice, or it would not be desire, with a language all its own. The point of lust, not to put too fine a point on it, is that it lures us to do dumb stuff, and the fact that the dumb stuff gets done is continuing proof of its power. (by Adam Gopnik, published in The New Yorker, November 26, 2012)
This article was referring to another of the “scandals” about high ranking officials having what are known as extra-marital affairs. In this specific case, it was a general in the army.
