It is fashionable in this modern age to take the posture of an agnostic or a near-agnostic. Not knowing is preferable to knowing, especially when the knowledge has to do with allegedly transcendent, universal matters. Morality, right and wrong, better and worse, all distinctions that many of the modern counter-enlightenment mindset (which I'll discuss later) cannot be sure of. "Yes, but that's your truth, isn't it?" they say. Or they cry, "Don't draw your moral lines on me!"
It's as if the trend toward DONT TREAD ON ME in the political sphere has been mistaken for a certain (but really uncertain) moral relativity, a kind of agnosticism. Professors, students, parents, children, everyone involved in the counter-enlightenment is conditioned this way, believing that they cannot believe, knowing that they cannot know, professing that they cannot profess.
The absurdity is twofold. One is found in the very act of pronouncing that one does not know, cannot know, etc. To know that one cannot know, for instance, is in fact to know. And to believe that one does not believe is to believe. "I believe in nothing" is to say that "I believe in something, but I'd rather call it nothing." Therein lies the second absurdity, that in claiming a kind of elevated, aloof objectivity on all matters moral, they are operating to self-deceive. Not only is believing nothing really believing something by virtue of simple logic, it is in fact believing something very particular. When a professor warns against judging those in the past with "cultural practices different from our own" (in a recent case, these "cultural practices" having to do with mothers committing outright infanticide), the professor is herself judging those with different cultural practices. She is in effect affirming those practices by proscribing any negative opinions about them--which is not to mention that those negative opinions are actually something much greater than mere sentiment and in most cases have a grounding in a universal morality, even if the person holding that view does not refer to it in those terms.
So, in short, beware of those who claim that they have no opinions, no beliefs, no moral views. To silence and chastise those who would decry the killing of innocent children for the sake of being, or rather seeming, objective and fashionably relativist is in reality to find little to no wrong in the act itself and thus to hold a belief. There is no such thing as believing in nothing.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
In the wilds of this wild country. . .
Some of the thickest, deepest wilderness exists in the clearings between forests. In the open places, where saws have made room for chimneys and driveways, where finely trimmed shrubs have replaced the great oaks and the noble firs, where man has made his remorseless stamp upon the land, claimed it for himself, and made it tame and quiet and dumb.
Only the night wind's sharp whistle speaks; only the cackling leaves disturbed by rake or busy feet protest. The settlers do not hear the wind or the leaves, and they do not notice the foulness of their own waste. They live and think, cry and laugh, sing and shout, all as though the whims and confidence of their broken minds were enough to sustain them.
The most perfect order, the most imposing civilization, is not here. It is not there, beyond the chimneys. It is not in the image of Earth; nowhere can it be found. There are riches to be had, and more forests to set ablaze. There are other clearings where human prey may be found waiting for purpose just as the predators who sleep a mile's leap away dream one night of acquisition, of enlargement, of taking and wanting and setting up great sculptures of themselves in place of their brothers and sisters nearby.
And there are the vast in-betweens, where life itself springs up out of the land and exhales the precious air that men turn hot and useless with their angry tongues. It is here where the trees still dwell beneath the skies, communing in a natural harmony with the birds and the rain.
But all of it is wilderness, no matter how wild or tame, when we consider its utter powerlessness. Every part depends upon another. The trees' sweet fruit and sugary sap are of no use, no beauty, if they cannot be consumed by beings constituted with enough sense to enjoy them. Yet those same beings cannot breathe if not for the tireless work of the trees, the soil, the sky. Each part has its place, but only in relation to the others. None is of use, and indeed none has life, if left to itself, to exist in isolation. And for men this is also true.
But even the bonds which draw together the life on Earth, which make up such a timeless interdependency and community, are not in themselves valuable or powerful. They exert nothing beyond themselves. The Earth seems to be nothing but a well-organized sphere of water and soil and men and beasts. And it is all wild, all independent of meaning.
We all by our nature inhabit an unknown, a deeply disturbing darkness. Those with minds to think have thought, though they have not discovered the purpose that they are certain has to be. Surely there must be a power beyond the trees, beyond even the mind. Surely there must be civilization beyond the wilds of this wild country.
Only the night wind's sharp whistle speaks; only the cackling leaves disturbed by rake or busy feet protest. The settlers do not hear the wind or the leaves, and they do not notice the foulness of their own waste. They live and think, cry and laugh, sing and shout, all as though the whims and confidence of their broken minds were enough to sustain them.
The most perfect order, the most imposing civilization, is not here. It is not there, beyond the chimneys. It is not in the image of Earth; nowhere can it be found. There are riches to be had, and more forests to set ablaze. There are other clearings where human prey may be found waiting for purpose just as the predators who sleep a mile's leap away dream one night of acquisition, of enlargement, of taking and wanting and setting up great sculptures of themselves in place of their brothers and sisters nearby.
And there are the vast in-betweens, where life itself springs up out of the land and exhales the precious air that men turn hot and useless with their angry tongues. It is here where the trees still dwell beneath the skies, communing in a natural harmony with the birds and the rain.
But all of it is wilderness, no matter how wild or tame, when we consider its utter powerlessness. Every part depends upon another. The trees' sweet fruit and sugary sap are of no use, no beauty, if they cannot be consumed by beings constituted with enough sense to enjoy them. Yet those same beings cannot breathe if not for the tireless work of the trees, the soil, the sky. Each part has its place, but only in relation to the others. None is of use, and indeed none has life, if left to itself, to exist in isolation. And for men this is also true.
But even the bonds which draw together the life on Earth, which make up such a timeless interdependency and community, are not in themselves valuable or powerful. They exert nothing beyond themselves. The Earth seems to be nothing but a well-organized sphere of water and soil and men and beasts. And it is all wild, all independent of meaning.
We all by our nature inhabit an unknown, a deeply disturbing darkness. Those with minds to think have thought, though they have not discovered the purpose that they are certain has to be. Surely there must be a power beyond the trees, beyond even the mind. Surely there must be civilization beyond the wilds of this wild country.
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