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Prudie's corn cob
Trudie has been thinking about a Prudie response for a few weeks now, and he can't get over his feeling that there are few true coincidences in romance...
Here is the query:
I have fallen in love with a woman I knew from childhood and ran into again after not seeing her for 20 years. As kids we hardly noticed each other, but when we met again after all these years we felt an immediate [sic] attraction. The problem is that when I was 12 years old I did something terrible that caused an accident that killed her father. No one ever found out it was me and I've never told anyone after all these years. I feel horrible about what happened, but it was a long time ago and I've gotten on with my life. But now what? Should I tell this woman that I caused her father's death many years ago? I'm afraid it would ruin our relationship and we love each other a great deal. The accident occurred when I was in a cornfield at night—we were throwing corn at cars when they drove by. We couldn't see the cars because we were hidden in the field. An ear of corn I threw went through the open car window and struck her father in the head, causing him to lose control of the car and crash into a tree. I ran from the scene and was never implicated.
Prudie thinks this is a tough moral dilemma, but that the guy has to come clean for his self-respect ("You cannot build a healthy relationship on such deceit"), admitting that her lawyers give the opposite advice.
Trudie starts from a different framework, namely that falling ln love is not entirely a spontaneous event. It is planned by our subconscious more than we realize. What could prevent us from falling in love with someone? Trudie could not, for instance, fall in love with a woman Trudie knew to be a communist, even if, like the younger Yoko Ono, she were extremely smart, attractive, and loved atonal music. Trudie also could not fall in love with a woman whose father he had killed, however "accidental" the event (what *was* he aiming the corn cob at, at what angle did it enter the window, and did he glue a rock to it?)
The simplest hypothesis, based on the near-universality of self-deception, is the following: a) the guy is a murderer, and b) he loves having the power over this girl that follows from having murdered her father and then holding this secret from her. He feels he can reduce her to a quivering mass of jelly anytime by coming forward with the information. He loves having that power so much that first he falls in love with her (who has he been dating in the meantime?) and then he writes into an advice columnist so as to report that power to other people, even at the risk of legally incriminating himself. Sick, sick, sick.
If that scenario is true, if only with some positive probability, what advice should Prudie give the guy? And under what conditions can you fall in love? Can you trust your conscious self-reporting of what you are doing any more than the murderer who wrote Prudie?
If only Tim Harford were here to set us straight...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 25, 2006 at 07:21 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Tyler,
This is all very interesting and clever, but could you kindly wait with your really disturbing posts until after lunchtime? I am still on my first coffee here, you know...
Posted by: Commenterlein at Sep 25, 2006 9:43:51 AM
Assuming that the tale is not just a tale, I don't find Tyler's reading compelling. See Kleist, The Marquise of O-. Ask any kid how he felt when he finally hit a bird with his BB gun.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Sep 25, 2006 10:06:57 AM
This sounds far to much like a novel to be genuine. I suspect that if it were a novel, and Romeo's really just a tragic character, than Prudie's advice sounds reasonable. If it is in fact genuine (or simply a thriller instead of a romance), I suspect that Trudie's hypothesis is the most likely scenario. Then again, I suppose that truth can be stranger than fiction: Before today I believed John Lennon to be the only person, living or dead, who could find Yoko Ono attractive.
Posted by: D.Cous. at Sep 25, 2006 1:00:18 PM
I may not be well versed in economics but do sorta think the general Judeo-Christian moral system upon which Western Civilization is based, for better or worse, didn't confer the same value to birds as humans. Maybe I value birds too little. Or humans too much. That guy's pathology is demonstrated attempts to rationalize: " but it was a long time ago and I've gotten on with my life."
Posted by: Hareem at Sep 25, 2006 1:07:35 PM
The corn lobber letter sounds like a (not very good) Creative Writing 101 assignment. But assuming the story is true, how would Trudie reconcile this post with Tyler’s views on the neuroeconomics of torture? If we allow that the experience of pain occurs in a separate neuropersonality than the experience of agency relevant for attributions of responsibility, why not say the same for love? Trudie calls the guy a “murderer” (for a childhood crime—not obvious) and attributes sicko feelings of power and control rather than true love. On what grounds can Trudie even use the language of agency and responsibility if the corn lobber has been reduced to a quivering mass of jelly by the cascade of dopamine and norepinephrine in his system? Perhaps Tyler and Trudie are blogging from different neuropersonalities?
Posted by: Hannah at Sep 25, 2006 1:49:01 PM
I don't care how young she was, Yoko Ono was never attractive. And I find it very difficult to believe she was ever smart, either. The only thing John Lennon's liking for her testifies to is the virulence of the drugs he was taking.
Posted by: Robert Speirs at Sep 25, 2006 2:11:30 PM
The beauty of the "marginal revolution = USA Today" thing is that Tim Harford reads this blog regularly and will, I am sure, weigh in on the issue precisely because you wished it and since it is right up his alley. And I think you know that, Professor Cowen.
What I find interesting is why not just e-mail Harford inviting him to lend insight. Oh, and what do you think about Harford not having a Doctorate degree yet. Think it is worth it for him to get one?
Posted by: Jeff Shepley at Sep 25, 2006 5:43:20 PM
I would approach this from a less extreme view of the "corn cob killer".
Does he enjoy his power over the woman because of his history in killing her father? I very much doubt it. If so he wouldn't be all hesitant about the relationship, and asking for advice.
No, he is wracked with guilt and remorse, the way you would expect a normal person to be.
Does this mean there is no weird, psychological guilt aspect to his attraction to the woman? Of course there is. His killing of her father has probably dominated his psychological development for most of his life. Any compulsive attraction for the daughter is bound to be linked to this.
So what should he do? Tell her? Can anyone imagine a case in which she will respond positively? Is it even possible that after that they will have a happy life together? I wouldn't think so.
So should he have a relationship based on a lie? I can't imagine that working either. This killing will hang over his head the entire time he is with her, distorting his behaviour, leading to his misery, and to her's too, even though she won't know why.
The best thing for him, and even more so for her, is to run far away and never contact her again.
This is assuming it's a true story. If it's fiction, she'll get her revenge eventually and gun him down in a hail of bullets.
Posted by: Patrick at Sep 25, 2006 7:58:15 PM
Prudie's advice is absurd.
Posted by: Matthew Cromer at Sep 25, 2006 8:52:18 PM
Has Prudie ever been to jail, or at least watched Oz?
Posted by: josh at Sep 26, 2006 11:04:52 AM
Is it possible that the writer is guilty for depriving the girl of her father and want's to fill the gap?
Plus:
The accident occurred when I was in a cornfield at night—we were throwing corn at cars when they drove by. We couldn't see the cars because we were hidden in the field.
Who else was in that field? What happened to them? What would they think if he reveals his secret.
Posted by: rcriii at Sep 26, 2006 2:19:46 PM
If he was not alone and could not see where he was throwing the corn then he can not be 100% sure that he was the one that caused the wreck. If he tells her then she will prob. have nothing to do with him and he more than likely find himself in a lot of trouble. If he doesnt tell her then he will live the rest of his life under a dark shadow of guilt. Either way i believe he needs to stand up and be a man-take the consequences for his actions. Even though the story sounds like a lifetime movie he would def. need to take the time and weigh out the consequences.
Posted by: tiffany at Sep 27, 2006 11:38:25 PM
"As kids we hardly noticed each other,"
He killed her father and yet he hardly noticed her?
This makes him either a liar, a psychopath, or out of touch with reality. He should stay far far away from her.
Posted by: Penny at Sep 29, 2006 6:16:32 PM
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