The author of the 1997 bestseller book, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," has asked the publisher to suspend printing of the book because of his changing views on the subject.

I don't know anything about the book, but the review presents a lot that overlaps with Mormon culture. In particular, how young lives are warped by enthusiasm for a particular, "model" way of life that in later years is discovered to have been less than what it claimed to be and ultimately harmful.

From the article:

"We insist that meritocracy works and combine it with a valorization of hard work (which itself stems from our country’s majority-Protestant roots). To maintain the story that success is accessible to all, we’ve developed a tendency to seek out and elevate simplistic formulas that we hope come with guarantees. Stay pure until marriage, and your marriage will flourish. Follow the “success sequence,” and you’ll never be poor. Go to the right school, and all career doors will open. Elect the right candidate, and America will be great once more.

But the dark side of all this is that when the formulas fail — as they so often do — it’s you who must have done something wrong. And then it’s up to you to fix it on your own. Bad marriage? You must have screwed around as a teen. Still in public housing? Should have gotten a better job. The if/then mind-set doesn’t take into account how much is actually out of our personal control, or the systemic forces — race, class, family history — that might hold someone back."

Of course, if one believes in a pre-existence, the explanation for why one is born into a particular race, family, class, or location is that one is being rewarded or punished for behavior before birth. This makes Mormonism even nastier than garden variety Protestantism, as well as denying the hope of subsequent reincarnations that Hinduism and other religions give.

Whenever somebody proposes a simple formula or solution, one should be doubly on the alert. As H.L. Mencken wrote, "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dramatic-implosion-of-i-kissed-dating-goodbye-is-a-lesson--and-a-warning/2018/11/14/eeecd65c-e850-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?utm_term=.ee9433cbf2a2

As my pal elderolddog likes to point out, you don't get to determine your position on the bell-shaped curve.

You can do everything "right" and still wind up outside the second standard deviation on the left.

You can do everything wrong and still wind up outside the second standard deviation on the right.

Now, of course, I'll argue that lots of things increase the odds of you being on the high part of the curve...but none of them are guarantees.

So, this book -- from 1997 and it's still in print?

I remember this book from growing up (Evangelical). It was huge! Almost like a cult of its own. I thought it was a load of crap then and argued with my mom about it. Glad to hear the author now agrees!