{"id":8029,"date":"2009-01-24T21:53:34","date_gmt":"2009-01-25T05:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8029"},"modified":"2009-01-24T22:02:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T06:02:00","slug":"why-be-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8029","title":{"rendered":"Why Be Good?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 1995, I wrote Dennis Prager a letter (15 months earlier<\/a>, I moved to Los Angeles to work for him, the job fell through) asking for his permission to develop his ideas on how to be a good person into a book.<\/p>\n

His assistant wrote back asking me to hold off.<\/p>\n

Instead of writing a book on goodness, I decided instead to write a history of porn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was only logical.<\/p>\n

I sometimes ask myself how would my life have been different if I had made a different choice for my first book.<\/p>\n

Dennis Prager devoted a recent radio show to the question of why do people do good<\/a>. "Even if you are not consumed with how can you be a good person, you are consumed with how can everyone in your life be a good person so you get treated better."<\/p>\n

"Everybody cares that there be more good people. They may not be one of them…<\/p>\n

"If I wrote a book, ‘Ten Ways To Be A Good Person’, do you think it would sell well? And it was brilliant, innovative, and clear. As opposed to ‘Ten Ways To Be Rich’ or ‘Ten Ways To Be Happy.’"<\/p>\n

Dennis, I really really wanted to help you write such a book. You didn’t give me the chance.<\/p>\n

It’s too bad.<\/p>\n

I don’t think you have to be a particularly good person to assist with writing a book on how to be good. I’m not a particularly good person but I’m pretty sensitive to issues of goodness even when I don’t live up to my own ideals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 1995, I wrote Dennis Prager a letter (15 months earlier, I moved to Los Angeles to work for him, the job fell through) asking for his permission to develop his ideas on how to be a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,59,21],"tags":[29761,15781,15780,1453,15782],"class_list":["post-8029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dennis-prager","category-ethics","category-personal","tag-dennis-prager","tag-history-of-porn","tag-how-to-be-a-good-person","tag-radio-show","tag-writing-a-book"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8030,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions\/8030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}