As an armchair history buff, I love famous historical people who were also prolific letter-writers. It gives a great insight into the person, especially when the letter was between family members or close friends and never intended for public consumption. (Reagan was one of these people) As much as I like Letters of Note for the great letters, for me having a stream of letters makes the person much more three-dimensional.
The book on the Adams-Jefferson letters has been on my reading list for a year now. Can't wait to get time to read it. http://amzn.to/MudjlA I believe there is a similar book for Reagan, but I haven't researched it. Enough stuff on the list already.
One of the great things about writing a letter is that it takes enough time and energy that you invest a bit of thought before you send it. I worry about 21st century thinkers who will be judged not only by the things they chose to write well, but the one-offs they sent out in the heat of the moment over email.
I wonder if some of that impression isn't anachronistic projection, though. Today you think of a letter as something that takes time/energy/thought investment. But it was not at all uncommon for frequent letter-writers of previous eras to write many letters in a day, closer to the way we write emails than the way we write letters. Probably not quite as routine as the average email, but people who wrote thousands of letters during their life treated it as just as normal way of communicating. It wasn't that strange for letters to be dashed off in short periods of time, and like with email, the amount of agonizing/revision/thought that was put into a particular letter varied greatly.
On your latter worry, it seems like there's some of that with earlier eras' figures as well. For example, some people's opinion of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre has shifted for the worse since their correspondence was published, since much of it is more like a sordid chatroom log, full of offhanded gossip about other people and such, than like the philosophical works they intended for public consumption.
Come now.. research your own deep track of historical data, all you've ever posted on the Internet for 'eternity' for 'all to see', and you do indeed get a broader picture of the person behind the posts.
Indeed we all have a common blithe ability to write a rotten sentence. But if you look at, say, jwz's broad swatches of data, or some other such figure, you can see that the bad emails are par for the course. I'd be worried if the figures of the 21st Century couldn't write an e-mail, at any position of the scale of troll to hero.
Oh I knew I was in trouble when AltaVista first hit and I realized that I would never get away from being 'that guy who used to post a lot of stuff on comp.sys.amiga.' :-)
You can choose not to send heat-of-the-moment emails.
a) You can be intentional about all your public writing - and I think that we have learned by now that email always has the potential to become public.
b) You can set up a delay-sending rule in your email client so that you have a grace period between pressing send and the message actually being sent - this has saved me embarrassment on any number of occasions.
You may be interested in reading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_a_Father_to_His_Da...] - letters from India's first prime-minister Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter Indira who later became India's first female prime-minister and the only one to have imposed a state of emergency.
My favorite epistolary book ever is Kafka's letters to Milena. Very profound and intense as Kafka, troubled and kafkian himself, collapses slowly -- into his tuberculosis and the realization of this platonic love affair.
President Reagan also has a book of speeches. His early speeches were self-written and pretty refined from multiple tellings. The advantage today is that you can listen to how he gave them as opposed to having an actor read it.
Of the modern Presidents, he probably wrote the most words and he did learn his style from radio and Hollywood. Not bad teachers in his day.
I do wonder in a hundred years what the historians will think of the writings of the first President to grow up with social media or maybe even USENET.
Regardless of the fact that this was written by a former US president, what’s truly amazing is that somebody could take a subject old as the world – love and marriage and write such a simple, genuine, straight to the point message, without a hint of bullshit that happens to reads like a novel.
If you think about it, it may be much harder to do so in a hand written letter too....compared to typing 75 words per minutes. Writing is slower, makes you more purposeful with every word, etc.
I'm not as impressed by this letter as others seem to be. Reagan's only advice is don't cheat and say "I love you" every day? Who goes into a marriage expecting to cheat? And if you even have the slightest inkling of wanting to cheat at the start, you're almost certainly marrying the wrong person. The letter provides no insight that I didn't already have by the time I was ten.
The true challenges of marriage come when the other person doesn't support your ambitions in life, or you don't support theirs. When you feel that they are constantly critical of you, or you of them. When they gain 100 pounds, or when you do. When for no particularly good reason you become engulfed with jealousy. Or they do. When infatuation gives way to whatever deeper feelings lie beneath. Or maybe you discover that the deeper feelings aren't there and you need to cultivate them if the marriage is to survive.
The challenges and joys of marriage are so much deeper than this letter conveys. This letter is like the "Just say no" to drugs campaign. Everything is boiled down to meaningless simplicity.
I think you glossed over the deeper meaning of the letter, which addresses exactly what you're describing. Its not a how-to on the various problems you may or may not face, written during a time when the only problem with marriage was male infidelity--its a overarching philosophy where he only used one example for illustration.
You get what you put in.
The context implies that there is another side the coin, and that this isn't a scientific destruction of the institution of marriage. It, and I think this is implied, assumes that the other person is also putting in what they hope to get out, and that you're marrying the right person.
I didn't gloss over any deeper meaning to the letter--it's not there. It's a very focussed and on-point sermon on remaining faithful. He barely even touches on why men sometimes cheat, other than to prove their manhood. But without addressing the real reasons, the message is just a lot of hot air. The real reason that most people cheat is because they don't feel loved, not because they just need another notch on their belt. They feel like they've already given 110% and their efforts are not appreciated, and the other person doesn't love them for their true selves, only for whatever tangible benefits they provide to the other person.
If I got such a letter from my father, I'd think, Pappa don't preach, throw the letter into the trash, and mark it down to yet another way in which my father didn't bother to get to know me or understand me at all.
You kinda did gloss over, well, everything that makes this letter good.
The letter is powerful because of how it said what it wanted to say. The examples and imagery are vivid; the message consistent.
What you wrote: "The real reason that most people cheat is because they don't feel loved" is right there, wonderfully articulated, in this letter.
The hard part of being married, and the hard won wisdom contained in this letter, is the realization that most of the time people fail us because we've failed them first. It's a recursive nightmare and the only escape is to forgive and continue to commit.
Easy to boil down to a tl:dr of "don't cheat" and dismiss. Knowing is not the same as doing (day after day), though.
I never said that the letter didn't say what it intended to say. Nor did I say that it doesn't say what it intended to say well.
My point is that it's not a message worth saying, just like the message, "Just say no" is not worth saying. It's a pointlessly simple message that is not likely to affect its target audience or change any outcome. This message is, in fact, insulting to its intended audience, Reagan's son.
Maybe, just maybe, the part about the wife always knowing when something is going on, would have an effect down the road, but the bulk of the message is, "Men are dirty dogs. You're a man and consequently, you're a dirty dog. All men want to do is dip their wicks, and therefore you will want to dip your wick. When you do, you will ruin your marriage, even if you think you won't, and then you will blame your broken marriage on your loving wife, just like all dirty dogs do. If you want to be happy, refrain from being the dirty dog that you know you are."
The fact of the matter, however, is that most men are not dirty dogs. The reasons that they cheat (which are the same as the reasons that most women cheat) are largely not due to just a desire to dip their wicks. The reason are much more complex, and by the time they do cheat, their cheating is a symptom of something deeper that is wrong with the marriage, and not the root cause of the marriage going bad, as is portrayed in Reagan's letter.
But the article wasn't about cheating. It was clearly an allegory to support what he said he was going to talk about in the opening statement.
You're entitled to your on interpretation of course, but I think its disingenuous to look at a letter with this context and say his great concern, which he took time to write a letter about during the age of telecommunication, reminding his son that cheating isn't part of marriage.
I was moved by the simplicity of the letter, even if it was from a different era. I felt there was more to it than just 'go through the motions' and you'll be fine.
I would be more inclined to accept his message if it could not be boiled down to "If it is not working for you, you are not trying hard enough".
Also, more marriages have probably failed due to the husband being a wimpy "I love you every day no matter what"-kind of guy than due to adultery. Adultery is the consequence of a failing marriage, not the cause.
When you are the president with power over a nation it can counteract the wimpyness. For a software developer? Not so much.
Adultery is rather common. Estimates vary widely, but 2-4% of children are not biologically related to their 'fathers'. Which only measures female adultery leading to a child add in male adultery it's farm more common than generally acknowledged.
Maybe that was his father's motivation to write the letter in the first place, he might have seen a predictable path in this relationship or how his son deals with things.
How qualified was Reagan to give marriage advice? How many marriages did he have? Was he a marriage counsellor? Did he study marriages? Statistics on couple behaviors?
Or is this like listening to the Kardashian's opinion on... child rearing or something?
How many marriages did he have? 2. First one 8 years and the last one was with Nancy for more than 40 years. But who are we to cast stones at him especially when he is advising his son privately. I mean, it's not like he is trying to advise the whole nation on marriage.
Here is something I pulled out of Wikipedia regarding his relationship with Nancy Reagan. Might give some perspective on his letter to his son.
"During his presidency they were reported to frequently display their affection for one another; one press secretary said, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting." He often called her "Mommy" she called him "Ronnie". He once wrote to her, "Whatever I treasure and enjoy ... all would be without meaning if I didn't have you." When he was in the hospital in 1981, she slept with one of his shirts to be comforted by his scent. In a letter to U.S. citizens written in 1994, Reagan wrote "I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.... I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience," and in 1998, while Reagan was stricken by Alzheimer's, Nancy told Vanity Fair, "Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. I can't imagine life without him."
That's what I got from it. It takes a sense of humility and ownership to admit those mistakes and be able to reflect on that and produce very useful advice to his son about it.
Wow, a father writes a private letter to his son advising him to cherish his wife and don't cheat on her. Not sure how anyone can find fault in that - but there you have it.
Which is why articles like this have no place here. It's simply not relevant to Hacker News unless you want to play the "7 degrees of Hacker News" game.
I think it's ok to take ideas and information as being somewhat independent from their creators. Bad people can produce good ideas, just as good people can produce bad ideas. I might feel very uncomfortable with Shockley's views on genetics and reproduction, but I'm happy he co-invented the transistor. Similarly, I can read Reagan's letter and get something out of it without needing to consider his acting or political career.
You cannot level such a stark criticism against a man who dared to be great - when you do so you embarrass only yourself.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Talk highly of him all you want, his rhetoric has hurt the US far more than it has helped. Between his voodoo economics and ignoring of the AIDs crisis, Iran Contra, the 'Moral Majority', I think you are embarrassing yourself here, not me. He is the epitome of style over substance.
You can say the same about just any other politician. They all made (and make) mistakes and stumble. The key is how history judges them. In the case of Reagan I think history is pretty clear about what he accomplished and what he didn't. Notice I said "I think" because that's just my opinion; everyone is entitled to one. Informed opinions are not embarrassing. Waving your arms and pushing your own absolutes on other people however can be quite so.
You're being silly now. I am not trolling - I stated my opinion. You said:
> Waving your arms and pushing your own absolutes on other people however can be quite so.
Which seemed to be directly in response to the OPs assertion:
> Ronald Reagan was a wise man and great president.
You can see how I would think you were referencing this in your comment as you specified that you were stating an opinion and the OP asserted this comment as fact, yet I stated:
> As far as I'm concerned he is an embarrassment
Which is obviously presented as opinion and not hard fact. I did however back up my opinion with points in a follow up comment.
edit: the downvotes don't make me any less correct in my response, if you disagree please explain.
The US didn't win the cold war, the USSR stopped playing due to an insolvency of mostly their own creation. And the same could happen to the US if it is not extremely careful over the next decade or so.
Much as I hate to stray this far from the topic at hand, AIDS turned out to be a much, much smaller deal than the alarmists of the 1980s would have had you believe. Not that it wasn't worth being concerned about, researching, and educating people about, but y'know what the death toll from AIDS is in the United States nowadays? Forty per million per year.
While that's still an order of magnitude above "lightning strike" it's below, say, Hepatitis C or many hundreds of other diseases that get less press.
Talk about hindsight fallacy. "Nowadays" is hardly the point; at the time, depending on what circles you moved in (or perhaps one should say, which classes of human beings you cared about), AIDS was devastating.
This is exactly why this political stuff needs to stay off HN. By your apparent definition no one could level start criticism against Hitler (hopefully that kills the thread).
The book on the Adams-Jefferson letters has been on my reading list for a year now. Can't wait to get time to read it. http://amzn.to/MudjlA I believe there is a similar book for Reagan, but I haven't researched it. Enough stuff on the list already.