The temporary inanity of a grumpy old man

It was a commentary that broke the internet, it seemed.

Mr. Epstein, 83, an essayist, author and former editor of The American Scholar, has been accused of advancing offensive views before. In a 1970 essay about homosexuality in Harper’s Magazine, he called gay people “cursed” and “an affront to our rationality.” 

“If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality” off the face of the earth, he wrote.

I hope that Epstein has "evolved" on this issue like how Obama famously said that he did.

I have read many essays by Epstein and blogged about them too.  One of his books, with his signature, was in my bookshelf for years.  It is was one of the three or five books that I received after The Atlantic selected my question for an interesting column that the magazine featured a few years ago.  All the books were signed by the respective authors.  Unfortunately, none of the books interested me and I donated them to charity.

There are three posts in which I have referred to Epstein's essays.

In this one, I appreciated the point that he made about "parenting":

My father and I did not hug, we did not kiss, we did not say “I love you” to each other. This may seem strangely distant, even cold to a generation of huggers, sharers, and deep-dish carers. No deprivation was entailed here, please believe me. We didn’t have to do any of these things, my father and I. The fact was, I loved my father, and I knew he loved me.

I have a suspicion that this cultural change began with the entrée into the language of the word parenting. I don’t know the exact year that the word parenting came into vogue, but my guess is that it arrived around the same time as the new full-court press, boots-on-the-ground-with-heavy-air-support notion of being a parent. To be a parent is a role; parenting implies a job.

Under the regime of parenting, raising children became a top priority, an occupation before which all else must yield. The status of children inflated greatly.

The guy can articulate a point of view. 

He could.  But apparently not anymore.

When reading this post in which I had quoted from another essay of his, it struck me why Epstein wrote about the "Dr." in Jill Biden's name.

George Santayana claimed that one of the reasons older people tend to grumpiness is that they find it difficult to envision a world of any quality in which they will not play a part.

Epstein is now the grumpy old man that he wrote about six years ago.  He finds it difficult to envision a world of any quality in which they will not play a part.

I hope that I will keep the grumpiness well inside me as I get older--life is easier when we learn from other people's mistakes ;)