Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

have been misled by her California manner which isresolutely cretinous as well as nasal. The possibility thatshe might one day be a woman I could actually talk to was arevelation, and by no means an unpleasant one. Naturally,she could not be allowed to win her point. Even so, it will, aswe academics say, count against the final grade. Ichallenged her with a simple question: does any societyknow how to preserve itself? I then listed a number ofcivilizations that had destroyed themselves throughupholding customs that were self-destructive. For instance,the health of the Roman state depended upon a vigorousaristocracy but that aristocracy committed suicide byinsisting that their cooking be done in expensive pots madeof lead. The result was acute lead poisoning which led toimpotence and the literal extinction of an entire class, killedby custom. Then, superb dialectician that I am, I discussedevery society's secret drive to destroy itself and whether ornot this was a good thing, taken in the larger context of thehuman race's evolution. They were both shocked at theidea, particularly when I brought it home to them bysuggesting that Rusty's desire to have sex only with girlsand Mary-Ann's desire to have at least four children theworld did not need might be considered proof that oursociety is now preparing to kill itself by exhausting the foodsupply and making nuclear war inevitable. Should this bethe case, the only alternative (and a most unlikely one)would be for all the Rustys to follow the Spartan custom ofmaking love to boys while the Mary. Anns, as lovers ofwomen, would at least help preserve the race by bringing