Archives for March 21, 2010

The last episode of South Park focused on the Tiger Woods scandal. While Tiger Wood’s marital misdeeds are primarily between him and his wife (and all those other women), the episode did raise some interesting points about fidelity or lack thereof.

It has been argued that men are unfaithful by nature and that they seek multiple partners. That is, of course, rather a difficult thing to prove. After all, we generally do not find humans outside of society that can be studied to see what is natural, what is socialized, and what is choice.

However, even if it natural for men to be unfaithful, this does not entail that such behavior cannot be controlled. Nor does it automatically entail that such behavior is morally acceptable.

As the South Park episode illustrated, it seems that many wealthy men have had affairs.  This does make a degree of sense. After all, money makes it easier to engage in such behavior and it certainly makes it easier to find partners.

However, it seems to be an error to put the blame on money. After all, people who are not wealthy have affairs and most people who are wealthy do not have such affairs (or at least do not get caught).  As such, the causal power of money to make men cheat seems rather limited (or non-existent).

One reason why it seems that wealthy men are prone to affairs is that the affairs of famous men make the news and are often covered relentlessly. This tends to create the impression that such affairs are common. However, when the number of such affairs is considered relative to the number of famous men (and also men in general), then things can be seen in the proper perspective. That is, such affairs seem to be relatively uncommon.

Of course, people do tend to work hard to hide their affairs and hence it is rather difficult to know just how many people really are having affairs. Perhaps it is rather common and other folks are simply better at avoiding being caught (or just luckier that Woods and his fellows).