the gay capitalist

In a conversation today, someone was ridiculing another person for being concerned about financial stability in a potential spouse. Someone else even called these concerns ‘shallow’. I would argue that such concerns are actually the opposite of shallow.

First, I should probably discuss what I consider love. My concept of love is pretty much the typical objectivist idea of love. It’s not something that could ever be ‘unconditional’. What do people mean when they say they want unconditional love. They want to be loved regardless of whether they are a good or terrible person? Some sort of love where instead of loving them for who they are, they are loved in spite of it? If such an emotion exists, ‘love’ isn’t the right term for it. I don’t know why anyone would want someone else to feel this toward them, unless maybe, as Ayn Rand suggested, they thought they were dispicable and no one could possibly love them for who they are.

My concept of love involves loving someone precisely because of who they are – because of their values. I suggest that ‘unconditional love’ is the ‘shallow’ form of love (if you must call it that), since it is completely unconnected to the person’s values and has nothing to do with who they are as an individual. ‘Conditional love’, if you will, is the ‘deep’ form of love, because it is your response to that person’s ideas and values – precisely what makes them unique and sets them apart from everyone else. A person’s values are, to some extent, reflected in their everyday life, and financial stability is certainly a part of that.

Now, I’m not saying it’s appropriate to make character judgements based purely on a person’s finances. There are a lot of other factors that come into play – age, for instance. Many people don’t begin to consider their long-term financial security until their 30s or beyond. You wouldn’t expect someone who is 25, and therefore 40 years from retirement, to have the same mindset about money as someone who is 45, and only 20 years from retirement. But if you run across a 45-year-old that hasn’t done any more planning than your average 25-year-old, you can probably draw certain conclusions about their values at that point.

Another factor could be simple bad luck. People lose money in the stock market, or they get sued and lose much of what they had, or they get divorced and end up losing half and paying child support, etc. Still, there are ways to mitigate these risks, and if this person didn’t at least take steps to mitigate the risk after getting burned the first time, that probably reflects certain values.

I’m also not saying it’s appropriate to make character judgements based on how much money someone makes. How much they make doesn’t tell you as much as what they do with what they make. A network admin who makes $70k a year and blows it all has different values than the guy who works at Taco Bell and carefully budgets and saves what he can. Further, making more money is not the equivalent of more financial stability. If the pattern in my example above holds for 40 years, the network admin will be depending on Social Security when he retires while the Taco Bell guy will retire a millionaire. Who has the edge in financial stability?

I’m also not saying that financial stability should be the determining factor in the selection of a potential spouse. A person’s values are reflected in many aspects of his life, from how he relates to friends and family, to what he likes to do for pleasure, to how he does his work. Financial stability is just one narrow expression of a complex set of values, but it is an expression of those values nevertheless and can hardly be excepted from consideration when you assess someone’s character.

If someone is looking for a spouse with a big paycheck so they can just be a leech, then yes that is most certainly shallow. But looking for someone with the mindset to plan ahead for their future is the opposite of shallow. It’s the recognition that a person’s actions are based on his values, that love requires a foundation of respect, and that respect isn’t easily granted to a 40-year-old man who has no more forethought than a teenager.

Filed under: Philosophy, Relationships