Will the iPhone kill love?

David Brooks thinks twitter has killed romance. "Across the centuries," he says, "the moral systems from medieval chivalry to Bruce Springsteen love anthems have worked the same basic way. They take immediate selfish interests and enmesh them within transcendent, spiritual meanings. Love becomes a holy cause, an act of self-sacrifice and selfless commitment. But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. ... In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner."

Matt Yglesias responds by posting an excerpt from Brett Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction that predates text messages but doesn't seem very romantic. Ellis, however, was an able chronicler of the generation that led to cellphones and text messages, so he might just have been a leading indicator. This example of the sanctified choice of an erotic power comes from a fairly sanctified, and suitably aged, source: Genesis 38.

When Judah saw [Tamar], he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it? And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him.[...] And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff. And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.

In short, Judah sleeps with an anonymous prostitute in exchange for a young goat, then calls for an old-fashioned burning when he hears his widowed daughter-in-law is pregnant after having sex with men in exchange for young goats (and other goods, presumably), then backs down when he learns that he's the father. And where Tamar almost got burnt, Judah's punishment is that "he knew her" -- which is to say, slept with her -- "no more." Also, he becomes the father of twins.

Columns like Brooks's irk me because they demean not only my lived experiences, but those of everyone I know. To offer a slightly more modern rebuttal, Sunday was my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend. A bit more than a year ago, we first met, the sort of short encounter that could easily have slipped by without follow-up. A year and a week ago, she sent me a friend request on Facebook, which makes it easy to reach out after chance meetings. A year and five days ago, we were sending tentative jokes back-and-forth. A year and four days ago, I was steeling myself to step things up to instant messages. A year and three days ago, we were both watching the “Iron Chef” offal episode, and IMing offal puns back-and-forth, which led to our first date. A year ago today, I was anxiously waiting to leave the office for our second date.

It is not for David Brooks to tell me those IMs lack poetry, or romance. I treasure them. Electronic mediums may look limited to him, but that is only because he has never seen his life change within them. Texting, he says, is naturally corrosive to imagination. But the failure of imagination here is on Brooks's part.

Photo credit: By Leah L. Jones/The Washington Post

