Letter #215: Screw Yourself and Die!
A Slogan for our Times
Spensoir.
Thank you for introducing me to the phrase incurvatus in se. You assert it’s the Augustinian definition of sin as a curving in upon oneself. To me, it sounds like a sexy Latin dance in which the hips don’t lie. But possibly those are just two versions of the same thing.
Okay, your translation is more profound. It clarifies how we find ourselves leading meaningless, self-destructive lives while we think we’re having a good time.
Here’s C. S. Lewis in his preface to Paradise Lost: “The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used.” So with eros. It has a purpose, a telos: The creation of children and the expression of unity in love. In your example from White Lotus, a man has sex with Asian prostitutes for no other purpose than his own pleasure. Of course, he ends up wanting to become one of the Asian girls. Essentially, he wants to go screw himself — which is really no more than the literal expression of what he’s been doing metaphorically all along.
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal has a piece headlined “American Women Are Giving Up on Marriage.” The article says many modern women have high-earning careers and feel they don’t need a man to care for them. They won’t tie themselves to guys who expect them to make a home and care for children. This strikes me as another version of incurvatus in se. Dare I say it? Well, yes I do. Womanhood itself has a telos: creation and nurturing. I expect many ladies who set aside this core purpose for “success,” will end up finding out that they too have screwed themselves.
To be fair, some of the women in the article complain that modern men are unworthy of traditional wives. They cheat. They don’t earn enough to support an at-home mother. I strongly suspect a lot of these guys have so abused pornography in childhood that they have not achieved normal sexual adulthood. They have actually come to enjoy porn more than lovemaking. Could there be a more obvious example of incurvatus in se? Manhood too has a telos, but these porn-hounds are quite literally screwing themselves instead.
Ultimately, all this incurvatus in se leads to a predictable end: the crashing birth rate. In 2023, U.S. fertility fell to a record low of 54.5 per 1,000 fertile females. Human bodies have a telos: life! But the wages of screwing oneself is death.
Before the technology of birth control, no one had to think too hard about the human telos. Men were men, women women. They had sex and babies followed, needing care. Now we can choose: stagnate in a solipsistic hall of mirrors, or turn our lives outwards and truly live.
It’s pretty clear which choice Homo Technologicus is making. The hips don’t lie.
Love, Dad
Thank you! Good grief, how long oh Lord is it going to take for it to be generally recognized and acknowledged that the contraceptive revolution of the 1960s destabilized the relationship between men and women with catastrophic consequences that are still unfolding. And sadly, because we just love scr*wing ourselves so very much, effortless contraception has become the most sacred of sacred cows. Do whatever, but for God’s sake don’t take away our contraception! Add that to the plummeting testosterone levels in males in the developed world, about which no one with any clout seems particularly alarmed, and — as has become all too evident — you’ve got one Hell of a problem.
Andrew, I was just scrolling through endless posts, pleading for Israel to stop killing innocent Gazan children, only to come across your serendipitous Substack post. The other day, I came across the number of abortions in 2023 in the US: 1073000. Why must I be horrified at children dying at the hands of the IDF and not horrified at the deaths of children at the hands of abortionists? What is the difference between martyring your child to free Palestine and martyring your child for "My Body, My Choice"? Both are just made up lands that do not exist, so it has an excuse to destroy life and a land that does exist. A body can not be owned or ruled, not even by the occupant. With low birth rates and high abortion rates, there is a genocide happening, and it is not in Gaza. Abortion is also a "Screw Yourself and Die" situation.
I was young and in love in the 90s. My boyfriend cheated on me, not with one, but with three other girls. He had four of us going at one time, and he had four of us finding out about it simultaneously. When I cried my heart out in my mother's arms, she said something I would never forget, "Men who sleep around with many girls are puppy dogs chasing their tails" It had the same tone as your Screw Yourself and Die post. Women chancing on careers and money are also puppy dogs chasing their tails. It is a juvenile game for a short-span mind. I hate using the word retarded, but that is what is happening to the adult mind< it is becoming retarded and staying very juvenile and underdeveloped and kept back from its true potential.
The same is true for gender ideology. What is the difference between making up genders to a child playing make-believe? In childhood, make-believe was a way to ready yourself for adulthood. Playing different roles helped a child recognise their potential and skills. Never stop playing make-believe, then your potential and skill will wither.
Thank you for your work. I love your style and appreciate your knowledge