Alain de Botton has addressed love, happiness and religion. Now he wants to investigate pornography in the belief it can be turned into a moral and noble industry.
The philosopher wants to bring together leading figures within the porn movement and the arts to identify a “new pornography” which is more socially acceptable and is “fit for thoughtful, good human beings”.
…He said society is “awash with porn” which “represents a threat” both to the people who create it and to those who consume it, but he is convinced that it need not be that way and that people can be sexual and virtuous simultaneously.
…“Ideally, porn would excite our lusts in contexts which also presented other, elevated sides of human nature – in which people were being witty, forinstance, or showing kindness, or working hard or being clever – so that our sexual excitement could bleed into, and enhance our respect for these other elements of a good life,” he said.
He really just doesn’t seem to comprehend that not everybody is crying out for a shepherd, a tutor, a father figure. I worry about people with such a propagandist bent, especially when they’re convinced that they’re doing it for virtue.