“When it comes to resisting the temptations of world improvement, married men, especially those with teenage children, have a great advantage. They are too busy trying to earn a living to pose much of a threat to anyone. And when they are not actually working, they have family tensions to arbitrate, tempers to calm, light bulbs to change, and doorknobs to fix. There is something about domestic life that tames a man… brings him down to earth… and keeps him tethered and modest. If he is ever tempted to think he knows something, he has his wife and children to remind him how wrong he is.
The single man, on the other hand, is a desperado. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were, effectively, single. So was Alexander the Great. They had no private lives; they had perforce to make public spectacles of themselves. The single man still feels the need to be a conqueror – of women or of men – by seduction or by brute force. That is why the public generally elects family men to high office; they don’t trust the lone wolf.”
Quoted from Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Amazon allows you to search the book – search for “lightbulbs” and you will find this text on pages 7 and 8, chapter 1).
A fascinating read.
