Say what you will about the mystics and their wild devotions, but at least they claim a clear vision of the Good, of an Ideal worth striving for. Whereas in our current popular ethics, the most we do is point to a failing, to a bad end, and display it as the example of what is to be shunned. Surely an ethic that only goes so far is lacking... something!
In another case, we hold up examples of diseased bodies to scare people away from the wrong path, rather than holding up examples of virtuous and ideal bodies to draw people to the right path.
In literature, too, we have fallen into this mode. Our "realism" literature [e.g. that of Isben] revel in showing bad behavior-- but do so no more than any past moral literature was able to do. The difference is that current realism lacks any portrayal of the absolute good as a counterpart. In the way that they only use negative portrayals or actions to make their ethical points, the literary realists are like dynamiting terrorists. "Both realists and dynamiters are well-meaning people engaged in the task, so obviously ultimately hopeless, of using science to promote morality."
And here is the connection: Rationalism that shuns an orthodox understanding of Truth flails about and gets lost in the details-- for it has nothing else to use. "Now we have fallen a second time, and only the knowledge of evil remains to us."
Any replacement concept we try to use is merely spinning our wheels. "Liberty", "Progress", "Education" are all goals of gaining more of... an unknown, undefined, and unevaluated quantity. H.G. Wells thinks he has located the purpose of man in parenting-- but that merely continues the line of man, toward what end? Unsaid. In this sense, Progressivism is a lie-- because unanchored "progress" can be made in any direction. Without a prior moral doctrine. "progress" is unmeaning. And yet that group insists on not adopting a moral doctrine.
No comments:
Post a Comment