Should great men of genius stay single?
Amy Benfer Jul. 23, 2008 | These days, most of the column inches devoted to the demise of the family are concerned with the much-maligned single woman. You know, the one who puts her selfish career and personal ambitions above the supposedly more worthwhile tasks of nurturing the next generation. But in this month’s New English Review Christopher Orlet reminds us that, throughout history, bachelors have been saddled with their own share of scorn, prejudice and suspicion — though, in his view, it’s no accident that they also happen to include among their ranks some of the greatest thinkers and artists in Western history. The first half of the essay opens with a bang: Taking the example of Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, whose domestic travails allegedly ended with him strangling his wife, Orlet quotes New Yorker writer George Steiner, who wrote: “Perhaps philosophers should strangle their wives.” By what moral logic? As Steiner has it: “The thinker inhabits fictions of purity, of
