Disingenuous at best

Dear editor,

This is in response to Paul Kokoski's Aug. 10 letter, "Undermining morality."

While his decrying of "our own life-repudiating self-absorption" isn't without validity (compassion seldom sells, unless accompanied by ample greasing of the palm), to lash out at liberal governments for "seek[ing] new and ingenious ways of undermining morality and embracing nihilism" is disingenuous at best.

Far from being a harbinger of nihilism, the social/cultural vibrancy of the West ― exemplified in its art, science, and education, but also in the liberal laws that promote them ― is an indispensable pillar of prosperity.

Whatever one may think of such issues as homosexuality and contraception, to claim that such legislation "repudiates life itself!" is to dismiss, with a wave of the conservative hand, the vigorous debate and intellectual ferment surrounding these issues ― ferment that is, at its core, supremely life-affirming. In seeking its undoing, the far-right declares its own nihilism with grim, cynical clarity.

Vladimir Skaletsky, Jr. Daegu Vskal@aol.com