"Every moralist is in danger of someday falling into the vice that he denounces, caught up by the object of his aversion. There is even a consubstantial link between the virtue that is trumpeted and the virtue that is trampled upon: authentic morality is modest and discreet. American commentary on politics and society is full of do-gooders, pastors, preachers and politicians opposed to pornography, prostitution, adultery, and drugs. Sooner or later many of them are found in the arms of a call girl or a minor, their nostrils full of cocaine. They then have to spend their time repenting and swearing on the Holy Bible that they won't do it again. The Monica Lewinsky affair is emblematic of the sexual neurosis camouflaged behind a disapprobation of lying - even if North American puritanism is perhaps no more than a way of limiting erotic bankruptcy following the sexual revolution and of reviving a libido that is always haunted by exhaustion. When everything is permitted, nothing is desirable anymore."
Pascal Bruckner The Wisdom of Money (2017) p.54-55
