Category: sex

Permissiveness and Stability

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December 21, 2025

By Stephen Stofka

In Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, the main character Raskolnikov is a former law student who wants to test a theory he has developed. He believes that there are two types of people, the ordinary folks who must obey the law and the extraordinary people who can break the rules if their actions advance some cause. This week I want to explore permissions, the people who grant themselves permission to do anything they want and the consequences for those around them.

This week the NY Times published excerpts from a Vanity Fair article about chiefs of staff to various presidents (Source). The excerpts were from eleven interviews that the current chief of staff, Susan Wiles, gave to Vanity Fair. In one of those interviews, she said that President Trump reminded her of her own father, the famous sportscaster Pat Summerall. Each of them act or acted as though there were no restraints on their behavior, that there was nothing they couldn’t do. According to Ms. Wiles, her father was an alcoholic and absent father. President Trump does not drink but has that same large personality, someone who knows few bounds.

The other avenue I want to explore is stability and instability. People who grant themselves extraordinary permissions create instability in their immediate circle. Alcoholics are a typical example of self-licensing, masters of rationalization. Powerful people like Napoleon believed that he was chosen by destiny and was exempt from the rules that others must live by. Adolph Hitler believed that he was an instrument of a historical providence to restore greatness to the German people. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that he survived World War I because he was chosen to create change. Both of these leaders created an extraordinary amount of instability and destruction. If they were chosen by destiny, it was a cruel destiny for mankind.

On the other hand, there are people who break the rules without any grand ideological justifications. President John Kennedy’s impulsive sexual behavior was more like this type. This is a reasoning that excuses certain behaviors but does not give a person license to do anything they want. President Bill Clinton initially rationalized his affair with Monica Lewinsky as not fitting the ordinary understanding of sexual relations (Source). While neither man’s actions had a catastrophic disruptive effect on society, their impulsiveness was destabilizing for their families and their personal life. In Clinton’s case, his affair led to an impeachment in the House.

In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov believed that he could commit murder. Neither Kennedy nor Clinton did. Some might put President Trump in the same camp with Raskolnikov. In his 2016 campaign, he boasted “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” (Source). However, this seems more like the braggadocio of a wrestler than an earnest belief that he could commit murder without consequence.

In a 2023 BestColleges survey, half of students felt that using AI on assignments was cheating or plagiarism, yet 20% reported that they still used it (Source). Some students copy and paste an AI response into their essay and submit the essay as their own. They might rationalize their behavior to themselves, saying that they don’t have the time because they are working to support themselves or their family. Some might believe that society in general or the job market in particular forces them to go to college. Some are going to college in the hopes of improving their earning capability so that they can better provide for their families. Like white lies, cheating is permissible if it is done for the good of others.

Does a student’s plagiarism disrupt the stability of a college or university? I don’t think so. However, the response by administrators and faculty indicates that they think this is a disruptive act. Evaluation is a key component of a college’s mission. Plagiarism undermines evaluation. What if a musical student in a composition class submitted a work by Bach as their own? Why stop there? Why not throw in some standards from the Great American Songbook? How about stealing a few pieces from the jazz repertoire? In  this extreme example, the student’s grades might indicate that they are brilliant and talented, but they have not developed the necessary skills. Their grades are supposed to be a fairly accurate reflection of those skills.

In the early 1970s, hand calculators became more affordable for students. This new technology disrupted the long standing practice of using slide rules and developing native mental skills. Some schools banned their use on tests, but allowed them on other assignments. Educators worried that students would not get a good grasp of mathematical principles if they used a calculator. Instead of mastering math, students only had to know which button to push on the calculator. In the following decades, norms and expectations changed (Source). Will the same happen with the use of AI?

Permission can be an exchangeable commodity. Stores throughout the country play music licensed as a public performance right from ASCAP or BMI. TV and radio stations buy licenses that permit them to broadcast over the area in a specific region. Companies license the use of a product or idea by paying a patent fee. All of us sign software licenses when we download an app. The buying and selling of permissions creates a stable economic environment where people can invest money to develop a product or idea and have assurance of some protection of their product.

Lori Loughlin was an actress on the TV comedy Full House. She and her husband paid $500,000 to a college admissions fixer to designate her children as recruited athletes using fraudulent credentials. College admission is a form of permission that the Loughlins purchased. Few were sympathetic to their use of power and status to bypass academic integrity, an unfair bargain. A prostitute grants certain permissions in exchange for money, a fair bargain. Some of think such exchanges destabilize our society, promoting immoral behavior and posing health risks. Others think that the criminalization of prostitution, not the act itself, is the destabilizing force.

Self-help books often present a structured self-permission designed to achieve some greater fulfillment in our lives. This might involve a change of direction in our personal lives, or a change in career. Some normalize a sense of guilt, sad or frustrated feelings. Their message is you are not alone. It is OK to experience these feelings. Some people are missing a rationalization for their feelings. Self-help helps confer legitimacy on feelings of confusion, doubt, guilt and sadness. It seems to me that these kinds of programs help stabilize a society. They are inward-directed rather than coercing behaviors from other people. They are aimed at self-improvement, not at some call to fulfill a person’s historical destiny.

Rationalization, a component of self-permission, is self-persuasion. We play the salesperson and provide a justification for our actions. We play the willing customer who wants to buy our justification to free us from responsibility, to absolve us of guilt. The justifications are not new so we must have heard them before. This exchange of justification helps smooth over any intra-personal conflict but our actions often destabilize those around us who must cope with the behavior.

During the 1960s, the Boomers expanded the bounds of acceptable sexual and social behavior, setting new norms that persist to this day. Did this expansion of permission undermine families? The divorce rate rose dramatically during the 1970s, peaked in 1980 and has declined since then (Source). Fewer adults are getting married so this is a factor in that decline. A couple that might have felt pressure to marry in the 1950s could live together for a time in the 1990s. If the couple split, it would not show up in the divorce rate. Archie Bunker, the main character on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, had few inhibitions when sharing his criticisms of society’s growing permissiveness.

Does greater permissiveness lead to a greater flourishing in society? That depends on your point of view. Conservatives like Archie would argue that behavior boundaries protect societal structures like the family. Liberals argue that the strict boundaries of the 1950s, for instance, only hid a lot of unreported personal misery. No society can flourish if the individuals in that society are caged. What do you think? I hope everyone enjoys the Christmas season and I will see you next week.

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Photo by Jason Hogan on Unsplash

Arbitrary Power

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March 9, 2025

by Stephen Stofka

This is part of a series of debates on centralized power. The debates are voiced by Abel, a Wilsonian with a faith that government can ameliorate social and economic injustices to improve society’s welfare, and Cain, who believes that individual autonomy, the free market and the price system promote the greatest good.

As Abel paused next to the restaurant booth, Cain bumped into him from behind. Cain asked, “What’s up?”

Abel said, “They still haven’t fixed the lump in the seat that was there last week.”

Cain shrugged. “I can sit there, if you like.”

Abel pointed to a booth in the corner. “Let’s try that one.”

As they slid into their seats, Cain joked, “I thought you didn’t like change.”

Abel smiled. “Many of us like consistency in our daily lives. I don’t understand how you and others want that in daily life, yet root for drastic change in government policy. Elon Musk with his chainsaw approach to downsizing government. Trump with his on again, off again tariffs.”

Cain nodded when the waitress stopped by with two glasses of water and a pot coffee. “Look, a President has to negotiate with his own government, with Congress, with foreign powers. Trump is using the tools available to him as the head of the executive branch.”

Abel raised his eyebrows as he sipped from his coffee cup. “Many of those ‘tools,’ as you call them, are probably illegal.”

Cain replied, “What’s legal and illegal is up the courts to decide. An executive has to act on a shorter time scale than the deliberate pace of the courts. Trump is a decisive executive.”

Abel interrupted, “Who changes his mind from day-to-day. Tariffs on, tariffs off. Erratic foreign policy with the European countries who are part of the NATO alliance. Building a luxury resort on the Gaza strip. It’s sheer lunacy.”

Cain looked up as the waitress stopped by, pen and ticket book in hand. “Number two for me, over medium, pancakes. Number five for him, scrambled…” He paused to look at Abel. “Pancakes, right?”

Abel nodded and said to the waitress. “My friend here is trying to be decisive today.”

Cain continued after the waitress moved on to serve another table. “Trump is trying to resolve tough issues that have gone unresolved for decades. NATO now has 32 countries (Source – U.N.), far more expansive in scope than after World War II when it was a defensive alliance of western European powers and the U.S. At that time, the U.S. had a deep interest in curbing military conflict that might lead to a nuclear third world war. Those days are gone. Same with the Gaza strip. Israel has occupied that since the Six Day War against Israel in 1967 (Source). How many solutions have been tried? As Shakespeare said, ‘Let me count the ways.””

Abel laughed. “Quoting Shakespeare like a scholar and ordering my breakfast like an executive all in one morning. Look, America is the oldest democracy because it has checks and balances that promote incremental policymaking. Change happens slowly. That frustrates people on both sides of the political aisle, but it provides a stability that the rest of the world admires and relies on. Trump is a bully, flexing his muscles to show how powerful he is. He is going to provoke a crisis then spend all his time blaming other people for the crisis.”

Cain shook his head. “I appreciate your point about stability, but our country is like a ship locked in Arctic ice. Too many policies and positions have been frozen for decades. Trump is trying to break free of these. Sure, there is going to be some breakage but its better than the status quo.”

Abel put down his fork. “The cure will be worse than the disease. Musk with his chainsaw approach to downsizing government. The defense department deleted 26,000 images with descriptive text that had the word ‘gay’ in it. In the process, they deleted images of the Enola Gay, the bomber that released the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.”

Cain equivocated. “Look I agree that a broad rule like that can have some embarrassing exceptions, but it’s several photos out of 26,000.”

Abel argued, “Computer algorithms are powerful tools but need to be deployed by people who understand the consequences of those algorithms. There is no adult supervision in the room. Musk is busy doing photo ops. Trump is busy signing pieces of paper his staff put in front of him. No one is supervising the whiz kids feeding algorithms into the government computers that pay seniors and veterans Social Security.”

Cain mopped up syrup on his plate with a finger. “There was plenty of human supervision on the rollout of the health exchanges under Obamacare. What was that? 2014? Jennifer Pahlka wrote about that disaster in her book ‘Recoding America’ (Source). A lot of the people working on that project didn’t have the skills or experience. What were they doing there? They knew the art of applying for a government job, if you ask me.”

Abel sighed. “You know Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist? On his Substack The Poetry of Reality he objected to claims that sex is not binary (Source). He distinguished between sex, a biological reality determined by our gametes at conception, and gender, a language convention. Like which adjectives and pronouns to use with different nouns.”

Cain interjected, “I like that idea.”

Abel nodded. “Some groups blur the distinction between sexual identity, an innate characteristic, with gender identity, a socially constructed belief like religion. Government can’t impose religious rules on Americans. It shouldn’t impose rules regarding gender identity either.”

Cain replied, “Yeah, rules need to be based on objective facts.”

Abel replied, “So now we have a President who spouts imaginary facts that he wants to impose on the rest of us. It’s his subjective reality, just like a man who thinks he’s a woman. The objective reality is that the U.S. has spent $100 billion helping Ukraine (Source). Trump says it is $350 billion (Source). He wants everyone else to acknowledge his subjective sense of reality as a test of loyalty. Trans advocates want others to acknowledge a sexual identity that is fluid, not fixed at birth. That’s also a loyalty test, but to the ‘woke’ movement. Trump bad-mouths the woke movement but uses the same loyalty strategy as the woke movement. Because Trump is President, it’s a display of arbitrary power.”

Cain shook his head. “I don’t think Trump actually believes half of the facts that he says. It’s just rhetoric he uses in the political poker game.”

Abel replied, “So you admit he lies.”

Cain shrugged. “All politicians lie. The public is used to it.”

Abel objected, “But how does a person know if Trump believes his lie or is using it as a bargaining chip? It’s all subjective. No one can know what Trump believes. That’s what he wants. Reality is arbitrary. That’s what autocratic leaders like Putin, Xi, Hungary’s Orban and Venezuela’s Maduro do. They cut the connection with objective reality. Anyone who disagrees with them is just being political or disloyal.”

Cain tapped his plate once. “I keep hearing that Trump is an autocrat, destroying democracy. FDR issued over 3700 executive orders during three terms (Source). Trump issued 220 during his first term.”

Abel interrupted, “He’s issued 75 in just the first six weeks of his Presidency. At that pace, he would have about 600 orders in a year, 2400 in a four-year term.”

Cain argued, “FDR had 99 in his first 100 days.” (Source)

Abel disagreed, “Look, the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Unemployment was 25% or so. People were desperate. A lot of those orders were FDR’s attempt to bring relief to a suffering public. There is no comparison with today.”

Cain said, “Trump’s trying to undo almost 100 years of the gigantic government movement that FDR started. It may take as many executive orders to undo that legacy as FDR signed.”

Abel shook his head. “After Trump has finished his coup and there are only the tattered shreds of our democracy left, his supporters will complain that they just wanted Trump to shake things up, not blow up the system. By then, it will be too late.” Abel slid out of his seat. “I’ll pick up the check. The public is going to get poorer as Trump and his cronies get richer.”

Cain looked up as Abel stood. “I have more faith in Americans than you do, I think.”

Abel raised his eyebrows as he looked to the street. “I hope you’re right, my friend. I’ll see you next week.”

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Image by ChatGPT in response to the prompt draw an image of a roulette wheel with the label “Reality” inscribed on it