Arity ἀρετή

From Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace:

Marathe leaned again forward on his stumps. 'Make amusement all you wish. But choose with care. You are what you love. No? You are, completely and only, what you would die for without, as you say, the thinking twice. You, M. Hugh Steeply: you would die without thinking for what?’

The A.F.R.'s extensive file on Steeply included mention of his recent divorce. Marathe already had informed Steeply of the existence of this file. He wondered how badly Steeply doubted what he reported, Marathe, or whether he assumed its truth simply. Though the persona of him changed, Steeply's car for all field assignments was this green sedan subsidized by a painful ad for aspirin upon its side — the file knew this stupidity — Marathe was sure the sedan with its aspirin advertisement was somewhere below them, unseen. The fanatically beloved car of M. Hugh Steeply. Steeply was watching or gazing at the darkness of the desert floor. He did not respond. His expression of boredom could be real or tactical, either of these.

Marathe said, 'This, is it not the choice of the most supreme importance? Who teaches your U.S.A. children how to choose their temple? What to love enough not to think two times?’

'This from a man who —’

Marathe was willing that his voice not rise. 'For this choice determines all else. No? All other of our you say free choices follow from this: what is our temple. What is the temple, thus, for U.S.A.'s? What is it, when you fear that you must protect them from themselves, if wicked Québecers conspire to bring the Entertainment into their warm homes?’

Steeply's face had assumed the openly twisted sneering expression which he knew well Québecers found repellent on Americans. 'But you assume it's always choice, conscious, decision. This isn't just a little naïve, Rémy? You sit down with your little accountant's ledger and soberly decide what to love? Always?’

'The alternatives are —’

'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?’

Marathe's sniff held disdain. 'Then in such a case your temple is self and sentiment. Then in such an instance you are a fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow self's sentiments; a citizen of nothing. You become a citizen of nothing. You are by yourself and alone, kneeling to yourself.’

A silence ensued this.

James 1:14-15, ESV

¹⁴But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Stephen Colbert at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards:

It warps the minds of our children and weakens the resolve of our allies.