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| QUOTATIONS 646-666 |
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| 646. It should be considered as axiomatic that the more power one has the more good one can potentially do. On the other hand, it is also true, albeit not always, but still in the majority of the cases, that to gain this power one has to do a lot of bad things. Hence, the unsolvable dilemma and the cruel paradox facing those well-intentioned but scrupulous individuals who want this world to be a better place to live in, but are afraid to make it worse in the process. 647. "I look at it", said the man about to be hanged, "as an opportunity to stretch my neck." 648. The separation needs not to be but often is accompanied and justified by accusations and condemnations, which those who initiate the separation hurl at those from whom they want to be separated. Thus, many a child feel compelled, in order to "free" themselves from their parents, to accuse and to condemn them of all kind of terrible things, as if the mere acknowledgement of the inevitable and natural differences is not sufficient to explain the necessity of at least partial separation. Thus, also, Christianity, the child of Judaism, felt obliged to condemn the latter in order to establish itself as a new and independent religion. But, as its founder Jesus Christ wisely pointed out, "those who live by the sword will die by the sword". Consequently, Christianity itself had to suffer the same fate it had inflicted upon Judaism when every new Christian sect, branch or denomination would justify its own split from the main body of the Mother Church by accusing and condemning it. 649. The religious truth is a kind of truth when, if one has faith, then it stands as an unshakeable edifice, whereas if one does not embrace unconditionally a set of some fundamental theological "first principles", which is the basis of any faith, then it all falls apart like a house of cards. 650. An intellectual's notion of Paradise is as far removed from that of an ordinary man as their respective ideas of what constitutes the most perfect happiness in this earthly life. For each is looking in hereafter for what he is lacking now. Thus, an Aristotelian scholar, Thomas Aquinas, following the long philosophical tradition, envisioned Paradise as the everlasting beholding ( spiritually, not physically, of course) of God who is the Truth, the Knowledge and the Wisdom, which is quite natural for any genuine intellectual to consider as the ultimate bliss. On the other hand, Mohammed, though a prophet, but in all other respects an ordinary man, a trader and a warrior, had created a practical, almost utilitarian religion with a Paradise to match. To him, it was a land in which there would be no suffering and the complete satisfaction of bodily desires. The righteous would enter into the pleasures of heaven - feasting, brilliant garments, sweet scents, music and enjoyment of the delights of the black-eyed daughters of Paradise ( all eternal virgins) - just what any average man has such a hard time to find in this life. In our times, the similar diversions of views on what Socialism - the modern version of Paradise - might bring exists between two main groups of its adherents: the poor ( relatively speaking) university educated intellectuals and the working class members of trade unions. The rich, educated or not, needless to say, do not spend much time thinking about Paradise, heavenly or otherwise. They keep themselves busy by spending money, and the more the merrier. So, when asked what he would like to have in an ideal society, besides such standard demands as full and secure employment, decent housing, extensive and free social services, etc., an average intellectual would probably list the things like foreign travels, unlimited by high ticket prices, access to cultural events like symphony concerts, opera, drama, etc.. He would also insist on full participation in political and social life, which means the rights and the opportunities to freely express his views and opinions ( and he/she usually has a lot of them and on almost any conceivable subject). And not only to express but also to be heard, to have his views and opinions respected and taken into consideration. Confronted by the same question at first, an average member of the working class most likely wouldn't know what to say, because as a practical person he ordinarily does not indulge into idle hypothesising. But, if pressed harder, he would probably include into his wish list most of the things which the so-called rich already have, i.e. a big expensive house, a luxury car or several of them, perhaps a yacht, vacation on the Bahamas and other current symbols of prosperity and status which would take too much space to enumerate. And he would certainly prefer baseball, football or hockey game to a symphony concert. Even the vaunted participation in the political life a working class person would consider only as the means to get what has been described above and not as an opportunity for self-expression, so much cherished by intellectuals. Those understandable differences between these two groups, as great as they are, would not be so difficult to reconcile had each group treated with respect the aspirations of the other. Unfortunately, this is not the case. What aggravates this situation further is the fact that it is the intellectuals who usually set the ideological agenda and then, oblivious of the legitimate differences between themselves and the average ordinary people, try to impose, either by persuasion (using their superior argumentative skills) or, when in power, by compulsion, their own peculiar version of the desirable end on the rest of the society. 651. In this time of ours when de-victimization is all the rage and when hardly a day passes by without a discovery of yet another species of inhumanity of man to man (or as some would insist of man to woman) more and more people step forward to declare themselves to be a victim of one or another type of abuse - sexual, physical, psychological, marital, racial, etc.. And if, in the past, people were reluctant to talk publicly about their suffering and especially about their humiliation, today they seem to be almost proud of it and wear their victimhood as a badge of honour like the war veterans wear their battle scars. As a result, they are getting the increasing amount of sympathy and understanding and, without question, deservedly so. Yet another problem seems to arise because of that. Since the public in general has apparently a limited capacity for paying attention to somebody else's predicaments, it becoming more and more difficult to have people to listen to one unless he or she can stake a claim to some kind of victimhood. But since the attention of others is one of our basic needs (witness the children who often cry for no other reason but to just remind everybody of their existence), some people who are, for whatever personal reasons, particularly hungry for attention, would resort in order to get it to "borrowing",so to speak, or appropriating somebody else's victimization. And though it is hard to blame the people who do such things, the consequences are as regrettable as they are predictable - the genuine victims become suspect. Eventually, it leads to a general debasement and devaluation of the whole phenomenon of the real abuse and victimization, which is just the opposite of what the process of de-victimization was supposed to accomplish. 652. What appears to help a victim of the wide-spread racism (like a Jew, for example) to cope with seemingly limitless, never ceasing hatred he is subjected to throughout his life is, paradoxically, its universality. For such a member of the persecuted group grows, through the years of relentless torment, to believe (in order to survive psychologically) that the way he is treated has nothing to do with who he as an individual is; that, in fact, it is not even directed at him personally, but against some abstract universal, almost Platonic "idea of Jew", so to speak. Having, rightly or wrongly, arrived at such a supposedly comforting conclusion, he then goes through his life trying to prove to everybody, but mainly to himself, that he has absolutely nothing in common with this "universal" (and universally hated) Jew. To accomplish that he becomes self-observant, self-critical, self-censoring, etc., creature and, as a result, though unintentionally, a victim, in addition to the external, also of self-hate. 653. Each one of us is born with a "powder keg" in his belly. Some use it sparingly , in small portions, throughout their lives, causing a lot of little outbursts, which, though like fireworks could be sometimes quite noisy, are essentially harmless to everybody, including the "carrier". But others, luckily not too many, save all of it for one big explosion, which destroys not only them, but also those close enough to be hurt. 654. I've read Plato, but have not become an idealist. I've read the New Testament, but have not become a Christian. I've read Lenin, but have not become a communist. I've read Hitler, but have not become a fascist. I have always been and shall remain to be myself. 655. How often have I seen people with many abilities and talents being prevented from developing any of them by other people or by circumstances, while to those who had none the ample opportunities were given to express themselves in whatever way or manner they wished. 656. How the power that be perceives its ability to successfully maintain its position of dominance can be fairly accurately judged by the way it treats the dissidents. For while the harsh treatment could be viewed as a clear indication of insecurity, the government that is sure of its strength and stability would simply ignore them. By the same token, the dissidents themselves could judge whether their opposition produces any effect by the way the government in power behaves toward them - the harsh treatment means they are on the right track, but if they are benevolently ignored the change of tactics is definitely in order. 657. Reading Summa Contra Gentiles helped me to understand the simple attractiveness (and effectiveness) of the first and fundamental premise of Islam - Allah Akbar - which means "God is the Greatest", for the same universal affirmative premise is the first and fundamental principle of the theology of Thomas Aquinas - the Doctor of The Church. The God of T.A. is not simply the Greatest. He is the greatest to the infinite degree and by this definition nothing can transcend this God. He is the absolute perfection and, therefore, any positive attribute one can think of - knowledge, power, goodness, etc., He possesses not just in the greatest but in the infinite degree. To use a popular American expression "you name it, he's got it". Take the Oxford dictionary, extract all positive adjectives, put them in superlative degree and even this will not be enough to describe God. At this point, however, it must be noted that to follow such a line of argumentation consistently, wherever it may lead, one has to acknowledge that infinity, by definition, must encompass not only positive but negative attributes as well. As a result, the inadmissibility, on the moral grounds, of predicating anything negative of the good and loving God, forced T.A., (in order to save his theology and absolute perfection of God) to construct and defend, rather awkwardly the proposition that as far as God is concerned there is no such thing as Evil in the Universe, and that evil is the result of the imperfection of human perception and understanding. To come back to the subject at hand, this first and fundamental principle "God is infinitely great" is not just a universal affirmative in the usual logical sense, but the most universal and the most affirmative, the Genus of all genera - the all encompassing Infinity. P.S. Later in Summa Contra Gentiles T.A. introduces numerous other universal affirmatives. But they all derive their legitimacy from this first one and are secondary to it. He often uses an indirect proof of a type: suppose God is not "A", then He is lacking something, then He is not perfect, which is impossible ex-hypothesi, therefore He is "A". 658. Recently, listening to a group of women-poets describing (in poetic form, of course) their relationships with men, I suddenly realized that all my life I've been labouring under the gross misapprehension about the kind of qualities a man has to display to attract a woman. For while I've always believed (and don't ask me where I've got these ideas) that "to seduce" a woman a man has to be witty, charming, erudite, attentive, etc., the actual things (the ones which had obviously left the strongest impressions on their memories)those women poets remembered about "men in their lives" were man's skin, his breath, his smell, his hands, his buttocks, his penis, etc., etc. None of them even mentioned a face of a man, as if it didn't matter. And, incredibly, there was no recollection of anything he ever said. And if the writings of these women-poets reflect the general attitude (and why shouldn't they?) of women toward men, then how naive, how hopelessly romantic we men are. Roxane, Roxane, where art thou? 659. The unfortunate, and largely unforseen byproduct of women's liberation has been the replacement, as far as women's writings are concerned, of love poetry by lust poetry, as if the romantic love had been men's invention to oppress women, by imposing on them not natural to the female gender modes of sexual responses and emotional expressions. 660. Asking to "cut the crap" someone who is so full of it that there is no room left for anything else is basically telling one to "shut up" forever, which is kind of unfair and even cruel. Besides, what is one man's "crap' could be another man's "gold". 661. Sunday afternoon, walking through Rosedale, one of the richest neighbourhoods of Toronto, witnessed a small boy, 4 or 5 years old, throwing temper tantrums because out of the three cars in a drive-way his father had chosen the one the boy didn't want to ride in on that day. 662. The law of necessity, the determinism, is concerned mainly with the beginning and the end (for everything that has a beginning must have an end), but is largely indifferent to what transpires in between. Take Man, for instance. A man may or may not be born, but once he is, he must die. Yet, whatever happens between birth and death is ruled by chance, disguised sometimes as a necessity , sometimes as a choice. That is why the lives of men are so infinitely varied and each one is so unique, shaped by the multitude of causes, both subjective and objective, few of which seem to be necessary, while the majority are clearly accidental. And even if the same man could have many consecutive lives, each one would be different from the rest. 663. The unpleasant feeling of envy we are all, unfortunately, familiar with, is caused by a misdirected evaluation: for to avoid this feeling one has to value less (or, if possible, not at all) the things that others possess (and one apparently lacking) and begin to appreciate more the ones which are his own (it is clear, that one who doesn't value a thing cannot be envious if somebody else has it while he doesn't). In the best position, of course, is the one who doesn't put any value on anything, for he must surely be free of envy altogether. Yet, this is an ideal no man can hope to measure up to. Only God, who, by definition, lacks nothing, is capable of this. 664.In the "idealistic" culture, which respects Knowledge as the End in itself, there is always room for those of its members who chose to use it as means as well. But in the "pragmatic" culture, that considers knowledge only as the means, one who views it as the end is a rare, and generally looked down upon, exception indeed. 665. Some people are forever trying to find who they are, the others find it equally difficult to escape themselves. Yet, paradoxically, these are quite often the very same people. 666. One's publicly professed ideology (regardless of the sincerity of the pronouncement) and everyday personal behaviour often contradict each other. It is not uncommon, for example, to witness an outspoken champion of freedom and democracy who acts in his personal life as the worst type of tyrant, while a self-proclaimed believer in the necessity of a strong authoritarian rule to uphold law and order treats everybody around him as equals, regardless of their hierarchical status. Another example of this phenomenon is someone who preaches, as if from the pulpit, the universality of human experience and essential sameness of all men, and yet, when meeting somebody new, never fails to inquire into his or hers national or ethnic origins. Many more examples of similar nature can be presented but the conclusion is already clear: how a person behaves day in and day out and, especially, how he treats those around him is more indicative of who he really is than loudly proclaimed ideological allegiances. For they may be changed through one's life like different dresses, but the body - the true self - remains the same. |
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