[lbo-talk] Straussian moralist as high rolling gamber

[andie nachgeborenen]

My guess -- wholly uneducated! -- is that anyone who has lost $8m gambling in a few yyears probably has a disorder. I don't think that' s different from people who play the markets. ( S speak as someone who lost waaayy more than he could afford in the bubble. But once was enough for me!)  I think the likelihood that he has an illness makes his moralism and virtue-preaching more pathetic. Basically Bennet's official view doesn't take account of human weakness and propensity to illness. I haven't cared to track the details of his views about which vices he denounces and which he coutnenances. Maybe you have. In the meantime I don't feel the least inclined to be any fairer to WB than he would be to me. Break his teeth, I say. jks
Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
On Sun, 4 May 2003, andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> Elmer Gantry, recall, like to drink and screw, two perfectly delightful
> activities, especially the latter -- it wasn't his doing them but his
> denouncing them as immoral while doing them that made him a hypocrite.

Yes, but that's just the point: Bennett has never denounced this. And he
said publicly a decade ago that he never would.


> No, the point is not that what he does is immoral, In facr, he's
> probably got an illness, comulsive gambling.

What makes you think it's compulsive? Is doing something a lot when you
enjoy it and can afford it compulsive? When it has no bad side effects
for you or anyone else? If so I'm a compulsive book buyer.

If Bennett is lying then by definition his excuses are no good. But if
he's not, they seem like perfectly good explanations in themselves. And
if they're true, they're not excuses because there's nothing to excuse.

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see the difference between
this and a guy who likes to put lots of money in the futures markets.
Poker isn't like roulette. It isn't guaranteed that you lose and the
house wins.

Other men waste scads of money and risk their lives sailing boats or
flying airplanes. Is this different? Aren't they all equally just forms
of high-priced adrenaline-charged fun if they can afford it?

Michael
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