We've had a lot of snow this winter in the nation's capital. Maybe not compared to Annapurna, but enough to close school for a lot of February and turn me into a whiny loser.

I wasn't complaining about the weather. (I like snow.) What bothered me was having to listen to my bedroom stereo instead of my He-Man rig in the living room. My son tends to monopolize whatever room he's in. While that's usually a non-deal, a week of not being able to listen to what I wanted where I wanted — and other weather-related restrictions — was enough for me to throw a pity party with you-know-who as the guest of honor.

And once the party got going it wasn't limited to the horror of listening to Miles Davis on less than audiophile-approved gear. I thought about how my obligations — as both a father and an employee — "diminished" me.

Like I said: "loser." But hardly atypical. As scholars such as Christopher Lasch, Philip Rieff and, more recently, James Davison Hunter have written, preoccupation with the self — as in "self-fulfillment" and "self-actualization" — and its "needs" has become a defining feature of American life. For many Americans, the goal of life is to be true to our self-understanding, a.k.a., "authentic," even if it means ignoring our obligations.

That's the case in two Oscar-nominated films featuring Julianne Moore playing a 1950s housewife: Far from Heaven and The Hours. In Far from Heaven, for which received a "Best Actress" nomination, Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a Connecticut housewife whose life seems, well, heavenly: a handsome husband named Frank (Dennis Quaid), two wonderful kids, and a lovely home complete with servants.

Then Cathy catches Frank having sex with another man and learns that, from Frank's perspective, their life together has been a sham. Despite his best efforts, including psychiatric treatment, he can no longer deny his true nature. Devastated, Cathy turns to her black gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) for comfort — a move that leaves her even more isolated.

While Far from Heaven does depict the impact of Frank's actions on his family, there's no sense of blame. It's as if the devastation had been caused by a stray meteor instead of someone's actions. However much one may sympathize with Frank's plight, the fact remains that his pursuit of sexual and self-fulfillment must of necessity come at the expense of his obligations and commitments to his wife and his children. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's not the first person — and he certainly won't be the last — to have made a promise that he later finds difficult and even agonizing to keep.

Then there's the relationship between Cathy and Raymond. Writer-director Todd Haynes' point wasn't that racism is bad; it's that racism, disapproval of homosexuality, and disapproval of an unfettered pursuit of self-fulfillment are morally equivalent to each other. Urging Frank to honor his commitments, even if it means "living a lie," is supposedly as reprehensible as rejecting Cathy and Raymond's relationship on racial grounds. The movie treats both as manifestations of the same underlying moral failing: a narrowness of mind coupled with a lack of suitable empathy.

In the The Hours, Moore, who received a "Best Supporting Actress" nomination, plays the victimizer instead of the victim: Laura Brown, another woman whose life, with its "nice house, nice marriage, and nice son," leaves little apparent cause for complaint. Yet Brown's "self-erasure" and "derived life" (to use a prominent feminist's characterization) are so unbearable that after coming close to killing herself, she abandons her husband and children and runs off to Canada. Years later, when confronted with the tragic and even lethal consequences of her actions, Brown has the effrontery — to say nothing of a total lack of irony — to say that she "chose life" when she abandoned her family.

Brown's actions are so callous that Gloria Steinem, who has made self-absorption a core tenet of what was originally a movement for legal and social equality, found it necessary to launch a pre-emptive strike of sorts in the pages of the Los Angeles Times. Steinem was concerned that some viewers "may demonize Laura for leaving her family to save her life." (Save her life?) And who are those unfeeling brutes? "Male moviegoers [who are] bewildered about why Laura wasn't happy with just her nice house, nice marriage, and nice son — as if they would have been."

Well, as a matter of fact, many people honor their commitments for a lot less. That's why we call them commitments. An important measure of our moral seriousness is the extent to which we keep our promises even when it costs us. It's almost impossible to imagine a better summary of our preoccupation with the self, and the concomitant moral poverty, than Steinem's equating Brown's unhappiness with physical danger.

In the moral universe occupied by Steinem and depicted in Far from Heaven and The Hours, our primary obligation is to ourselves and our desire for self-fulfillment. Actually, it's our only obligation since self-fulfillment in these films is a zero-sum game in which caring for others comes at the expense of meeting "our needs."

Thus, not only should I have thrown David out of the family room, I should feel free to accept invitations or pursue career opportunities regardless of their impact on him. Fortunately for him, I don't and I won't, nor do any of my friends.

Why? Part of the reason was captured by Daniel Taylor in his book The Healing Power of Stories: "When I am tempted, as I always am, to put my personal advantage ahead of the common good — in my home or in society — I ... can sometimes be nudged toward something resembling concern for others by remembering a story from long ago about wizards and hobbits."

The story is of course Lord of the Rings. If Far from Heaven and The Hours turn self-absorption into a human right and even a sacrament of sorts, The Two Towers reminds us that it is our obligations, and how we meet them, that define us — both who we are and more importantly, what kind of person we are. This is true even if, like Frodo Baggins, you didn't choose your obligations; they chose you.

When the Elves comes to the aid of Man at Helm's Deep, what makes their action moving is that it's one that flagrantly disregards their "needs." Strictly speaking, it's not their fight; they've already got one foot outside of Middle Earth. Yet they join humanity in its hour of need because their sense of honor insists that they have an obligation to those they are leaving behind.

The rightness of their actions is perfectly obvious, at least if you ignore what you've been taught by our therapeutic culture. Would you want to live in a world where everyone had the "right to make a fresh start when previous commitments became unduly burdensome?" Then why would you assert such a right for yourself? Most of us wouldn't call someone who asserts such a right a "friend." Then why should we absolve a parent, even a cinematic one, who does the same?

To borrow a book title from my fellow Boundless contributor, J. Budzisewski, the importance of honoring our obligations and commitments is something you "cannot not know." It's something that is written in the moral fabric of the universe. More than a decade ago, a professor of mine at the Dominican House of Studies (Catholic University) asked us "what do we mean when we say that God is just." The answer surprised us: He always keeps His promises.

The root meaning of the Hebrew word tsedeq, rendered variously in English as "just" or "righteous," is someone who keeps his promises. That makes sense when you remember that the relationship between God and His people — first Israel and then the Church — is described as a "covenant," i.e., a pact or a contract in which mutually binding promises are exchanged. The Scriptures are, in large measure, the story of how God held up His end of the bargain, and then some, even when we, lured by the proverbial grass on the other side of the fence, walked away from ours. That makes stories that rationalize promise-breaking, like Far from Heaven and The Hours, seem shallow and even absurd.

Now, remember you heard it here seventy-first, but I suspect that it'll be Chicago that walks away with all the pretty hardware on Oscar night. But I'm even more sure that long after people have forgotten Marshall's opus, not to mention The Hours, people in difficult circumstances will find themselves remembering a movie "from long ago about wizards and hobbits" and finding the inspiration they need to keep their promises.